Snapshot delta disk naming rules for VMs utilizing identically named virtual disks with a configured workingDir

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article explains the specific file naming rules for snapshot delta disks when they are created under two conditions:

1. The VM is attached to multiple virtual disk files (.vmdk) with the same base name
2. A custom workingDir has been explicitly configured in the virtual machine's settings to specify the location where snapshot files should be stored.

 

Resolution

When a snapshot is created and a workingDir is configured, the delta disks are always created in the specified workingDir location.
If the virtual disk files have the same base name, a unique sequence number is assigned using the original filename.

Example:

The VM has below configuration.

Harddisk 1: /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore1>/TEST.vmdk
Harddisk 2: /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore2>/TEST.vmdk
workingDir: /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore3>/Snapshot/

When a snapshot is created with the above configuration, two delta disks, TEST-000001.vmdk and TEST-000002.vmdk, are created in the workingDir.
If another snapshot is created in this state, TEST-000003.vmdk and TEST-000004.vmdk will be created.

The respective snapshot chains are as follows:

Parent Disk	Snapshot1	Snapshot2
/vmfs/volumes/<Datastore1>/TEST.vmdk	TEST-000001.vmdk	TEST-000003.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/<Datastore2>/TEST.vmdk	TEST-000002.vmdk	TEST-000004.vmdk

Additional Information

Creating snapshots in a different location than default virtual machine directory for VMware ESXi and VMware ESX