When creating a snapshot on a virtual machine with virtual disks or virtual-mode Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks, you experience these symptoms:
The maximum size of a snapshot file is the size of the corresponding base disk and the size of the overhead required for that size of VMDK. If you examine the datastore which contains the working directory of the virtual machine, the VMFS volume containing it must by configuration allow a file of that size. By default, the working directory contains the virtual machine's .vmx configuration file. When created, the working directory VMDK may be configured at the maximum size (but see the recommendation below). The maximum file size differs among versions of ESX/ESXi, and among versions of VMFS, and according to the block size used in creating the datastore.
ESXi 5.0 and 5.1 with VMFS5
Block Size
|
Maximum File Size
|
1MB
|
2TB - 512Bytes
|
For ESXi 5.0 and later hosts using VMFS5 volumes upgraded from VMFS3, the upgraded volumes inherit the VMFS3 block size but the normal VMFS3 block size limits do not apply to the new upgraded VMFS5 volume. Here are the file size limits that apply to the different types of VMFS5 volumes.
For more information, see the Storage Maximums tables in:
For more details about the conditions and limitations of the increased file size compatibility in ESXi 5.5, see Support for virtual machine disks larger than 2 TB in vSphere 5.5 (2058287).
ESX/ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.x/6.0 with VMFS3
On ESX/ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.x./6.0 using a VMFS3 datastore, the maximum file size is determined by the block size of the VMFS3 datastore:
Block Size
|
Maximum File Size
|
1MB
|
256GB
|
2MB
|
512GB
|
4MB
|
1TB
|
8MB
|
2TB - 512Bytes
|
ESX/ESXi 4.0 with VMFS3
On ESX/ESXi 4.0, the maximum file size is determined by the block size of the VMFS3 datastore:
Block Size | Maximum File Size |
1MB | 256GB - 512Bytes |
2MB | 512GB - 512Bytes |
4MB | 1TB - 512Bytes |
8MB | 2TB - 512Bytes |
Maximum VMDK size | Maximum Overhead | Maximum size less overhead |
256GB - 512B | ~ 2GB | 254GB |
512GB - 512B | ~ 4GB | 508GB |
1TB - 512B | ~ 8GB | 1016GB |
2TB - 512B | ~ 16GB | 2032GB |
To resolve this issue, either change the location of the virtual machine configuration files or change the workingDir
to a datastore with enough space for the snapshot file(s).
The workingDir
is the location where the snapshots are created, By default, the workingDir
contains the virtual machine's .vmx
configuration file. To change the workingDir
directory to a datastore with enough block size, see Creating snapshots in a different location than default virtual machine directory (1002929).
To move the virtual machine's disks and/or configuration files, use Storage vMotion or cold migration with relocation of files. For more information, see the:
If the virtual machine already has snapshots, some procedures may not work or may try to create a snapshot. This table lists the requirements for the various procedures:
Procedure | Requirements |
Storage vMotion | The virtual machine must not have snapshots on ESX/ESXi 4.1 hosts or earlier. It may have snapshots on ESXi 5.0 or later. |
Cold migration with relocation of files | The virtual machine may have snapshots. The source and destination hosts must be running ESX/ESXi 3.5 or later. |
Change workingDir | The virtual machine may have snapshots. When new snapshots are created, new redologs are placed in the workingDir directory. |
Hot clone | The virtual machine may have snapshots, but the snapshot hierarchy must be less than 31 snapshots deep. Hot cloning a virtual machine creates a snapshot on the source at the beginning of the process, then deletes the snapshot at the end of the process. |
Cold clone | The virtual machine may have snapshots. Cloning the virtual machine creates a new virtual machine with the same content as the original virtual machine, but without snapshots. |
vMotion to ESX/ESXi 3.5 | The virtual machine may have snapshots. The virtual machine must use hardware version 4. ESX/ESXi 3.5 does not perform the check described here and allows the creation of snapshots. |
When performing a Storage vMotion migration, you may encounter this error:
Moving a virtual machine that has snapshots is not supported when the virtual machine has disks placed outside of its home datastore.
For more information on the maximum file size per VMFS block size, see the Configuration Maximums document for your version of ESX/ESXi.
For the Japanese version of this article, see 仮想マシンのスナップショット作成処理が次のエラーで失敗する: ファイルがサポートされている最大サイズより大きい (2001988).
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