Stale pointer vmdks left in vm directory after removing RDMs

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Issue/Introduction

Sometimes after removing RDMs from a VM stale vmdks will be left in the VM directory. Looking at the directory you may not be able to tell which vmdks are still in use. 

Environment

ESXi 7.x

Resolution

You can resolve this by performing a storage migration of the VM from one datastore to another. This will only move the vmdk files in use, and you can then remove the remaining vmdks from the old VM directory.