Datatstores are filling up with 'other' files

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

There are a few reasons that the datastore could be filling up rapidly. This article discusses potential causes for the datastore filling up with "Other" files:

You may get the error when consolidating: 

An error occurred while consolidating disks: There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation

Environment

VMware vSphere 8.0.x

VMware vSphere 7.0.x

Cause

In vSphere, "other" files in a datastore are non-managed files, meaning they are not associated with a registered virtual machine. This includes items like documentation, backups, ISO images, and virtual machine files not tied to a specific VM. 

Resolution

To reduce the number of other files, check for SAS backups, orphaned vmdks, and other large files. To do this, SSH into the host and then cd into the full LUN. Then, run the following command on the datastore: 

du -h 

or

ls -lah

This will show you all files within the datastore.

Additional Information

NOTE: Do not remove any files ending in .vmdk or other VM files as they may be part of a snapshot chain. If you remove a snapshot from a chain then you will lose all data on this LUN. (See Consolidating/Committing snapshots in VMware ESXi)

NOTE: Always take backups before removing files from the datastore