How to Remove an Inaccessible Datastore from vCenter Inventory

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• One or more datastores appear as Inaccessible in the vCenter Inventory after unmoting from all the hosts.

• From ESXi CLI, esxcli storage filesystem list may show volume with empty mount points.

  /vmfs/volumes/########-#######-####-##################  OSDATA-########-#######-####-################# #######-########-####-############    true   VMFS-OS 128580583424  115675758592
                                                         #######-#####-DATASTORE00                     #######-########-####-############    false  VMFS-6      0             0

Environment

Vmware vSphere ESXi 7.x / 8.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.x / 8.x

Cause

The backing LUN was detached or deleted at the storage array level before the datastore was properly deleted or unmounted from the vCenter inventory. As a result, vCenter Server continues to track the volume's UUID in its database, causing it to persist as an orphan object in the UI.

Resolution

To remove the inaccessible datastore from vCenter Inventory.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client.

2. Navigate to the Storage view.

3. Check if any VMs or Templates are still associated with the inaccessible datastore.

   • Note: Even if a VM resides on another datastore, it may have a stale ISO or secondary disk reference pointing to the inaccessible volume.

4. Once all references are cleared, right-click the Inaccessible datastore and select Delete Datastore.

5. To refresh the inventory across the cluster, right-click the Cluster and select Storage > Rescan Storage.

Additional Information

Unable to remove inaccessible datastore from vCenter server