We are using thin virtual disk for all our virtual servers. One of the challenges we are facing is disks are not getting reclaimed from guest OS if the data is deleted. For example, if I allocate a 100GB thin disk to a virtual server from datastore, initially it will only use a few MB from datastore then later if I fill up that 100GB with data on guest OS, datastore usage also will increase by 100GB.. later if I delete these 100GB data on guest OS, I am not getting this space back on datastore. Size of my vmdk file will be still 100GB. I am looking for a method to shrink the unused blocks from gust and make that space available to datastore. I am sure, many other customers also facing similar issue in relation with space. I was wondering how this challenge is being managed. Please let me know if I did not explain my concern correctly.
↧
Shrink disk size after deletion of data on guest OS - Thin virtual disk
↧
Re: Shrink disk size after deletion of data on guest OS - Thin virtual disk
see if following post is of any help
↧
↧
iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
Dear Experts,
I've just configured one ESXi 6.0 host and a Synology ds2015xs NAS for MPIO/Multipathing. On the ESXi side I created two VMkernel adapters with a dedicated physical NICs each and all other NICs set to unused. I then added the adapters to the iSCSI software adapter in ESXi. On the NAS side I configured two interfaces within the same subnet as the VMkernel adapters. I then created a target that allows multiple iSCSI sessions, added LUNs and allowed access to the target for the IQN of the iSCSI software adapter of ESXi.
Back on the ESXi side I added a static discovery entry by manually adding one of the NAS devices IP addresses and the target IQN. After rescanning the storage, ESXi showed two paths to the NAS interface for which I entered the IP address as static discovery entry:
With this configuration, multipathing does not work - once I shut down the interface on the NAS, ESXi does not automatically fail over to the second interface of the NAS. After adding a second static discovery entry with specifing the same target but the second IP address of the NAS, ESXi showed all four paths - two to each interface on the NAS:
With this configuration, multipathing works as expected. If one interface on the NAS goes down, ESXi automatically uses a path to the second interface.
Actually, this seems logical. At first I was wondering about whether it is correct that I have to enter each interface of the target manually to get the corresponding paths to it. First I thought that I only need to enter one IP address of the target and that MPIO uses some kind of magic to automatically discover the paths to other available interfaces on the NAS. Later I've seen that this is the case when using dynamic discovery instead of static discovery. However, even dynamic discovery adds all interfaces of the NAS as static discovery entries. Once I remove one of those entries from the list, the corresponding paths are removed as well.
So is my understanding correct that the path information always refers to the corresponding IP address of the target and that a path will stop working once its corresponding IP address is not available anymore?
Thanks,
Michael
↧
Re: iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
When configuring storage access, it's always important to follow the vendor's recommendations. Not only for how to setup the IP configuration, but also for the Path Policy (e.g. Fixed, MRU, Round-Robin).
Regarding your question, a lot of storage arrays are configured with an additional VIP (virtual IP address), or group IP address, which are then used to configure dynamic targets on the ESXi (or other) hosts. When an initiator connects to such a VIP or group IP, the target will respond with all of its associated IP addresses. If this is not an option for your storage device, you need to provide all target IP addresses manually (as you did).
André
↧
datastore bandwidth
hello
we host 8 rds servers (windows server 2008 r2) on 4 hosts (esxi 5.0.0. 2312428), 1 vcenter server (5.0.0. 623373). all this is hosted in claranet's data centre on what they call vplatform.
our issue as of late is - we are seeing users remote session slow down, get frozen across multiple sites. checks on rds servers indicate no windows issues nor problems with available cpu or memory. call to claranet to investgiate potential IOPs issue but they couldnt find anything on the SAN (which is shared amongst other customers of claranet). they did however report that we had 'quite a lot of bandwidth spikes on datatstore 1. we have 4 datastores but my colleague has setup the C: drives of all 25 virtual machines on datastore1. i cant find anything that sticks out on the performance charts.
im not sure if setting up a datastore like this is a bad idea, especiall with 25vm c: on the same datastore. i've attached a graph of the bandwidth spikes sent by claranet.
↧
↧
Re: iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
Hi André,
thanks, I guess this means that in order to use an arrays IP address for an iSCSI connection / addtional path it must be included in the static discovery list as a separate iSCSI server entry - either by adding it manually or through dynamic discovery. If a given IP address it not known to ESXi it will not be used for iSCSI connections.
BR Michael
↧
Re: iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
Yes, ESXi (as well as other operating systems) will only connect to known targets.
André
↧
Re: Cannot add vasa provider in vSphere 6 like I could in vSphere 5
VMware KB: Virtual Volumes and VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) may explain why you see a difference between 5.5 and 6.0 .
It still does not explain the error. It is possible that the certificates which are in the array are not proper, but due to no checking, it was showing as working. That is a guess
↧
Re: iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
Thanks André. I have one additional question - do you know how to find out which "Controller" (that is part of the runtime name on the iSCSI adapter) belongs to which VMkernel adapter/NIC:
I know that the values T and L are refering to the Target/LUN respectively but don't know what the controller information (C) is related to.
BR Michael
↧
↧
Re: iSCSI Multipathing - does each path refer to a particular target IP address?
Interesting question, but I can't answer it at the moment. Btw. the "C" refers to a Channel rather than to a Controller.
André
↧
VAAI UNMAP - reclaim-unit for a netapp storage
Hi,
I am using "esxcli storage vmfs unmap" command to reclaim the deleted blocks from datastore. There is a parameter -l reclaim-unit to be mentioned in this command if we don't want to use the default value of 200. I would like to know what will be the suitable reclaim-unit value for a Netapp storage? Is there a easy way to find this value?
Regards
Binoy
↧
Re: datastore bandwidth
You get under 20ms latency on your datastore, which is a very good latency figures and shouldn't cause any problems.
You can additionally check you storage I/O statistics using Perfmon form within your VMs. Set up data collection and monitor disk statistics such as latency, bandwidth, disk queueing, etc.
Did you also rule out a possibility of network issues? If you're running your workloads in a public cloud, network latency issues are quite common.
↧
Error al hacer una réplica diaria de una Máquina Virtual
Buenas tardes, realizando una réplica diaria a una Máquina Virtual nos ha dado este error varias veces y aleatoriamente, y no conseguimos solucionarlo. Hemos reiniciado la Maquina Virtual varias veces para intentar solucionarlo pero no lo hemos conseguido.
Un saludo y Muchas Gracias de antemano.
↧
↧
All VMs Provision size equal 0 in a datastore
hi guys
I would like to know if someone has seen this before and any idea how to fix it
I see all Vms stored in a specific Datastore whose VMDKs show disk a size 0 MB if a VM has a disk in another datastore the VMDK says the correct size in this specific datastore all VMs are like that
these are 2 different Storage
1. Storage DS3500. Providing 4 Datasrores. OK
2. V3700.Providing only one datasore. Not OK
All VMs are working fine but I am not really happy about this behavior
I am adding two screens, also disks are marked as Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed when I know all are in thin
thanks a lot
↧
Problem with Esxi 5.5
I use the VMWARE converter to convert a physical PC to a virtual PC with the destination being to the local PC to a folder. But how can I get it to work on as a virtual machine on an esxi 5.5 server. I have uploaded it to the esxi server datastore but cannot find a way to make it work as a virtual machine. I even make it a .ISO file and yet still cannot work.
Can someone pls help me ?.
↧
Re: All VMs Provision size equal 0 in a datastore
Are these disks greater than 2TB ? If yes then take a look on this KB : VMware KB: 2TB thick provisioned VMDK disk shows up as 0.00 bytes in the datastore browser
↧
Re: DataStore 2 VVOL Migration Problem
I am having the same issue.
Any other suggestions? I have modified my vm to be 32,768 MB (32GB) to try and fix it with no luck. I wasn't having this issue last week with migrating to VVOLs, but now almost every vm i try is having this error? Am I missing something in the above recommendations? Aren't you just modifying the virtual disk in vSphere to be 1024x32, so my example above of 32,768MB should be fine as 32GB, correct?
↧
↧
Re: DataStore 2 VVOL Migration Problem
I made sure that the drop-down was showing GB when I made modifications to the Harddisks. Make your're doing it for all of them present on the VM (The web GUI seems to hide the 3rd disk and beyond behind another button.)
That solved it for me. Good luck.
↧
Re: Incorrect "Used Storage" reported - ESX 5.5
For those of you playing at home, a similar issue has been addressed in a patch:
Datastore Summary page shows incorrect provisioned space in vSphere Client (2110199)
Symptoms
- • The vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client summary page does not display right values for Not-shared storage and Used Storage counters.
- • The value is incorrect on the virtual machines tab for the datastore(s).
- • The information in the Storage views tab through vCenter Server reflects the proper value of storage space used for a virtual machine.
- • Output of PowerCLI may also be affected by this issue.
Cause
The issue occurs when hostd does not consider the space saving due to sharing of file blocks across disk files present on shared storage while calculating provisioned space.
Resolution
This is a known issue affecting VMware ESXi 5.0, 5.1, 5.5, and 6.0.
This issue is resolved in:
- • ESXi 5.1 Patch Release ESXi510-201510401 and later, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.1, Patch Release ESXi510-201510401 (2114860).
- • ESXi 5.5 Patch Release ESXi550-201505002 and later, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201505002 (2114245).
- • ESXi 6.0 Update 1a, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1 Release Notes.
↧
VMDK file is corrupt. I cannot access files on the disk
Hi There,
Reaching out for major help here.
I have a VM that had a snapshot. I performed delete all snapshots actions on the disk but canceled it by mistake.
The snapshot files are have disappeared but my drives are not accessible anymore. I am looking for a silver bullet here that might allow me to recover one drive enough to get to backup files on it.
VM is Windows 2012 server and it has 2 drivers, OS drive and Data drive. I have been googling all day long to find a solution to this problem but just can't seem to find anyone who had a similar issue.
Please could anyone help?
Best Wishes
Dan
↧