Datastore is full, need to free disk space

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

A datastore is full, VMs are unresponsive.

Customer is eager to free some disk space 

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.0

VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Cause

The datastore is full, there is no free disk space.  When user tries to storage vMotion a VM, it also failed because online storage vMotion need extra  free disk space.

The user has not other options, he need to remove some files on the datastore to free disk space, or power off some VMs, therefore these VMs can be cold migrated.

Resolution

1) Check snapshots, consolidate snapshots.

For this VM, the vmdk is thick provisioned, and there are 200GB free disk space in guest OS.

But the backup software created a snapshot, therefore all the new data are written to the new snapshot, the 200GB free disk space cannot be used.

To use the 200GB free diskspace in guest OS, they need to consolidate the snapshots

 

2) To consolidate snapshots, the datastore should have about 15% free diskspace , how to get free diskspace?

a) The VM is unresponsive, so it can be powered off, and remove the .vswp file .

b) Search the iso files on the datastore, and remove the iso files ( ensure these iso files are for Windows and Linux installation, not user data)

c) Search large and old vmware-##.log files, these files can be removed.

d) If a VM has been powered off, then it can be  cold migrated to other shared datastore, even the current datastore is 100%.

Because cold migration doesn't need extra free diskspace.

Additional Information

Japanese KB: データストアの容量が不足しています。ディスク領域を解放する必要があります。