When checking the free space of the shared datastore, different values are displayed across ESXi hosts.
Article ID: 436257
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Issue/Introduction
In VMware vSphere, the displayed free space of a shared VMFS6 datastore differs across ESXi hosts.
Specifically, when a file is deleted from the datastore via the Host Client on a specific host (e.g., ESXi A), the following behavior can be observed:
- The free space value observed on ESXi A immediately updates and matches the vCenter Server.
- The free space value observed on another host sharing the datastore (e.g., ESXi B) does not update and shows a different capacity than vCenter Server and ESXi A.
- When a storage rescan is performed manually on ESXi B, its free space value updates and becomes consistent with vCenter Server and ESXi A.
This discrepancy can be observed when checking the capacity via the ESXi Host Client, PowerCLI or API.
Cause
This is the expected behavior by design in vSphere.
When an ESXi host (e.g., ESXi A) performs file operations on a datastore, it updates the VMFS metadata and refreshes its own recognized free space.
Additionally, vCenter Server periodically(every 30 minutes by default) performs a datastore rescan via one representative host to update its inventory.
Therefore, any other ESXi host sharing the datastore (e.g., ESXi B) that did not perform the file operations, and was not selected as the representative host from vCenter Server, will not update its recognized free space.
As a result, the recognized capacity of the shared datastore on that host will remain outdated until a manual storage rescan is executed on it.
Resolution
If you need to verify the latest capacity value of a shared datastore from an ESXi host, perform a manual datastore rescan.
This retrieves the latest metadata and synchronizes the ESXi host's recognized capacity to the current state.
- Log in to the Host Client of the specific ESXi host displaying the incorrect datastore capacity.
- Perform a storage rescan.
- Verify the datastore free space value updates to reflect the accurate capacity.
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