Ensure alerting is configured and working to monitor capacity utilization especially when using thin provisioned vmdks. Keep your thinprovisioned storage thin download raxco software. I want to shrink a thin provisioned vmdk file, because in the affected virtual machine os there are many gbs free, but the thin provisioned disk is nearly the same size like a thick provisioned disk. Growing, thinning, and shrinking virtual disks for vmware. We had an issue with a datastore that was running out of space, so i starting looking into it and found that several of the vms on this datastore were set with thick provisioning on the hard drives. The thin provisioned virtual disk starts small and grows as more disk space is required. With the disklevel thin provisioning feature, you can create virtual disks in a thin format.
Sep 06, 2012 the reason for this is that i often need to download the vm to usb storage of whatever and transfer it to remote sites. So unfortunately, this option isnt helpful when you want to reclaim unused disk space. I am creating a brand new vm and specifying a 100gb thin provisioned hard disk. That is the reason behind me not using it in this post. Since shrink was disabled for thin provisioned disk under windows 7 32bit, i have found an advice to run sdelete. Thin persistence also helps enterprises maintain sustainability targets by keeping down data center power and cooling needs. Download sdelete onto the vm you want to shrink and run the following. Vmware admins also need to keep an eye on capacity alerts, because thinprovisioned vms grow over time. Vm with thin hard drive how to reduce disk size after deleting files. Vmware vmdk shrink and storage thin provisioning 101. Defragmenting and shrinking vmware workstation virtual machine. When you need to save storage space, you can create a virtual disk in thin provisioned format. I have a 16 tb thick provisioned disk but the vm is only using 9tb of this. Dec 17, 2015 hp 3par thin persistence software reclaims this unused space to increase capacity efficiency, keep costs down, and help defer the purchase of additional capacity to handle new data growth.
How to zero blocks in order to reclaim thin provisioned disk. For example, if you create a new thin provisioned 30gb virtual disk and copy 10 gb of files to it, the size of the resulting vmdk file will be 10 gb, whereas you would have a 30gb vmdk file if you had chosen to use a thick provisioned disk. This discrepancy can lead to storage oversubscription, also called over provisioning. Example architectural decision datastore lun and virtual disk provisioning thin on thin 2. How to successfully virtualize ms exchange part 16. Assuming i can find a way to do step 1 on a particular vm, do you know if this method works with any type of vm regardless of the guest os. Thin an existing large virtual disk so it consumes less datastore space, without actually shrinking the virtual disk. I have create a virtual disk with thin provisioning enabled. When you have some vms with thin provisioned disks, you may have noticed that these will continue to grow, and never shrink, even after cleaning out data from within the vm. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that. With esxi, you can use two models of thin provisioning, array. Vmware admins also need to keep an eye on capacity alerts, because thin provisioned vms grow over time. In the case of a vm running off of a linked clone, the.
For a thin virtual disk, esxi provisions the entire space required for the disks current and future activities. Unfortunately, i dont have any datastore with enough space on it for me to vmotion, copy, or clone the vmdk to. Thin provisioning is a feature where the disk file increases over time. The sdelete alone from sysinternals is not going to shrink thin disks. If you defragment a thin provisioned vm, as file blocks are moved around, the tp vmdk bloats up, consuming much more disk space. Shrinking a thick provisioned disk in vmware esxi 5.
For example, if you create a new thinprovisioned 30gb virtual disk and copy 10 gb of files to it, the size of the resulting vmdk file will be 10 gb, whereas you. Vmware esx 4 reclaiming thin provisioned disk unused. Storage vmotion to thin disk does not reclaim null blocks 2004155. We got a request to reduce the allocated size of thick provisioned virtual machines hard disk. I wanted to know if i used storage vmotion and moved this and changed it to a thick provisioned disk would i then be able to shrink the vmdk file. Vmware has long asserted that having fewer iops is better than having lots of iops, but exactly how are you supposed to reduce your total iops. I have a vm assigned about 2tb thin provisioned of disk space and it utilizes just about 300gb. As mentioned, if the disk is thin provisioned, there is no point shrinking it. How to shrink a vmdk using vmware converter techrepublic. In order to shrink the vhdx, you must delete the partition or volume at the very end of a logical disk, or you must shrink it. You can verify the disk type from the virtual machine settings page. Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned disks rickard nobel. In a windows vm with vmware tools running, you can rightclick the vmtools icon and select open vmware tools.
May 06, 2017 thinprovisioned disks never shrink automatically when you delete data from it, lets learn how to do it. Regarding the vmware kb2004155, a svmotion process to another datastore does not shrink the vmdk file. The procedure uses the vsphere client and vcenter server to perform this task. Thin provisioning this method contrast with thick provisioning and helps you eliminate storage underutilization problems by allocating storage space in a flexible ondemand manner. How to increase the hard disk space of thin provisioning vm. But i have a large vmdk that is 16tb, it was thin provisioned. Since shrink was disabled for thinprovisioned disk under windows 7 32bit, i have found an advice to run sdelete. Nov 07, 20 shrink a thin provisioned vmdk disk november 7, 20 november 3, 20 vmware 7 comments when maintaining a horizon view environment i like to keep my parent images as small as possible and over time a thin provision disk can start to grow on you if you dont watch it be it from downloading installers, updates, or even running disk defrag.
Several weeks ago i found a tutorial about how to shrink a vm disk using vmware converter, but the current version of that product had that feature removed. Changing the thick or thin provisioning of a virtual disk 2014832. Nov 24, 2014 howto shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk posted by fgrehl on november 24, 2014 leave a comment 25 go to comments thin provisioned disks are a great feature to save capacity as you virtual machines filesystem will never use the full capacity. The steps howto reduce vmdk size by using vmware converter standalone. You can determine the actual storage usage in the storage reports. Does anybody have shrink enabled for thinprovisioned disk, and what guest windows are you using. This post demonstrates various ways to identify the disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk. Thin provisioned vms reduce the overhead for storage vmotion, cloning and snapshot activities. Reclaiming unused vmdk space with storage thin provisioning.
Normally, this would clear all unused disk space, but strangely this doesnt work for thin provisioned disk. To shrink a vmdk we can use an esx command line tool vmkfstools, but first you. In the case of a vm running off of a linked clone, the defragmenter bloats up the linked clone redo logs. Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space. If you deselect some partitions, the whole disk is still shrunk. If youve cleaned up space on a thin provisioned disk and. Thin disks conserve space, consuming only the space that is required for data. This will add the unused disk devsda3 as a new pv physical volume to lvm. Nov 26, 2015 in order to shrink the vhdx, you must delete the partition or volume at the very end of a logical disk, or you must shrink it. Normally, this would clear all unused disk space, but strangely this doesnt work for thinprovisioned disk. What is the best way to shrink a thin provisioned disk. Since shrink was disabled for thinprovisioned disk under windows 7 32bit, i have found an advice to.
Thin provisioning is another type of storage preallocation. From all ive read, im expecting the physical size of the vmdk file to be less than 100gb. Will thinprovisioned vms shrink automatically just. I have a virtual machine with a 10 gb thin provisioned disk.
It was because i only have 5g file on the disk but the actual size is about 10g. Vmware esx 4 reclaiming thin provisioned disk unused space. Now i know that the disk is thinprovisioned, and in the case of the above, if i successfully reduce the 60gb limit to 50gb then its not going to make any difference to the space consumed on disk, but i confess i have a touch of ocd so i wasnt going to. Vmware advanced vmdk size reclamation for thinprovisioned disks. How to successfully virtualize ms exchange part 16 virtual disk provisioning types. Ive seen a number of posts on the vmtn forums as well as had discussions with folks regarding reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion so i thought it made sense to do a quick writeup on how this process works. Reducing the maximum size of a virtual disk with vmware fusion workstation. Reduce iopsimprove vmware performance raxco software blog.
You may find yourself in a situation where you need to either. Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space using thin provisioned virtual disks can provide many benefits. A simple way of doing this is by using a free utility called sdelete from sysinternals. Shrink a vmware virtual machine disk vmdk virtualman. More information on vmdk and datastore provisioning options.
From vmwares perspective an iop is a scsi command originating in the windows guest that is processed by the hypervisor and the storage controller. Having thin provisioned disk is usually no longer a performance problem so it is a valid design choice even in production. When a file is deleted from the virtual machine os, the free space is available for the os, but the disk file on the datastorestorage domain is not reduced and will keep being considered as used. A common issue with thin disks is that the size will grow when required, but never shrink. I had thin provisioned this vm to conserve as much disk space as possible. This is required to reclaim space back from the virtual disk. I only have about 1 tb of ssd storage in my lab and i dont like to waste too much of it. To save storage space, you can create a virtual disk in thin provisioned format. Red hat enterprise linux rhel vmware storage vmotion.
Reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin. With esxi, you can use two models of thin provisioning, arraylevel and virtual disk level. This continue reading powercli to find all vms with thick provisioned vmdk. My hosts use nfs to connect to my synology nas, and even if i use the vaainas plugin, i use thinprovisioned disks only. You can create thin disks only on the datastores that support disklevel thin provisioning. Sep 24, 2016 at a high level, its rather simple use zerofree to change any free sectors of the virtual disk to zero, and then use vmkfstools punchzero option to free up those zeroed sectors from the physical disk, thus reducing the size of the thinprovisioned disk on the physical disk. You can create thin disks only on the datastores that support disk level thin provisioning. Click yes when vmware tools finishes wiping the selected disk partitions. In my case, my virtual machine is allocated with 45 gb of disk. Power down your vm fire up the vmware converter standalone software connect to your vcenter which manages the vm that vmdks needs to be shrinked click next. The trouble with hp 3par thin persistence software raxco. At a high level, its rather simple use zerofree to change any free sectors of the virtual disk to zero, and then use vmkfstools punchzero option to free up those zeroed sectors from the physical disk, thus reducing the size of the thinprovisioned disk on the physical disk.
Currently, three major operations are supported by vmware converter expanding, thinning, and. Create thin provisioned virtual disks the thin provisioned virtual disk starts small and grows as more disk space is required. Despite freeing up lots of space, the vms vmdk was still consuming a lot more than 26gb. Cant reduce hdd size thin provisioning vmware communities. Only the space at the end of a disk can be reclaimed by a shrink operation. Shrinking thinprovisioned esxi disks miscellaneous knowledge. While i knew this was grossly oversized i wasnt able to do much about it at the time so i thin provisioned it. I am not considering databases, applications or fileservers which will grow constantly. I see a lot of questions and answers surrounding thin provisioning on vmware esxi but not exactly what im encountering. In most cases, for virtual machine hard disk shrink can be performed via v2v. This article provides steps to reduce the size of a virtual disk. I have used above mentioned workaround at both the levels. Thats why im trying to find the version which works, so i can download that and its probably going to work. A virtual disk that immediately occupies the entire provisioned space is a thick disk.
Reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin provisioning. Mar 15, 2019 now i know that the disk is thinprovisioned, and in the case of the above, if i successfully reduce the 60gb limit to 50gb then its not going to make any difference to the space consumed on disk, but i confess i have a touch of ocd so i wasnt going to be happy until that maximum value read 50gb. Shrinking thinprovisioned esxi disks miscellaneous. Free up esxi local drive vmfs datastore space after deleting data in a thin provisioned windows. Below is an image which show what you will get in your shrink page of vmware tools if you are using thin provisioned disk. Raxco developed perfectstorage with research and input from some of the worlds largest companies and leading storage vendors such as hp, dell and hitachi. The trouble with hp 3par thin persistence software. Oct 31, 2016 the steps howto reduce vmdk size by using vmware converter standalone. A virtual disk can be provisioned with specific allocated space thick disk or with space allocated on an asneeded basis thin disk. Beware of these seemingly innocent vm tasks that can balloon a thin disk and wreak havoc on the it infrastructure. But as i began downloading the vmdk disk image from my esxi server in vmware, i noticed that it took a very long time.
Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned vmdk files in esxi server. In my environment at work we have a policy that we thin provision all new vms. In my case, my virtual machine is allocated with 45 gb of disk size and disk type is thin. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that is. The reason for this is that i often need to download the vm to usb storage of whatever and transfer it to remote sites. Workstation reduces the size of the disks files by the amount of disk space reclaimed in the wipe process. Not only do they allow overprovisioning, but with the prevalence of flash storage, performance degradation really isnt a concern like it used to be. Possibly the biggest issue that we have with thin provisioning is running out of space on a device that is thin provisioned at the backend. Nothing is happening after giving the vmkfstool command. Does nay action need to be perform can reduce the size.
Download a 30day free trial and see how easily you can reclaim space on thinprovisioned disks. Identify disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk. I know i cannot shrink a thin provisioned drive and everything ive read says use the vm converter and it requires a downtime. Thick versus thin disk provisioning basics in vmware. To shrink a thin provisioned disk vmdk use a thirdparty tool within the guest operating system to zeroout disk blocks that may have. To extend your root volume you can add this disk to lvm logical volume manager. Jun 29, 2009 in a windows vm with vmware tools running, you can rightclick the vmtools icon and select open vmware tools. This is the new thin provisioning stun vaai feature in vsphere 5. Some things should be simple, shrinking a thin provisioned virtual disk should be one of them, its not.
Will thin provisioned vms shrink automatically just as they would grow automatically. Thin provisioned virtual disks are quick to create and useful for saving storage space. Nov 25, 2009 one more note before it comes up by my readers, vmware tools shrinking functionality is not support on thin provisioned disks. How to zero blocks in order to reclaim thin provisioned.
This will just reduce the vmdks usage on the vmfs datastore not resize the provisioned size of a thin disk. This article provides information on resizing of virtual disk files. However, those partitions are not wiped for shrinking, and the shrink process does not reduce the size of the virtual disk as much as it could with all partitions selected. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that is vmfs6.
Back to the index of how to successfully virtualize ms exchange. Sdelete is a free tool made by sysinternals and available for download from the microsoft site here. This procedure assumes that you are creating a typical or custom virtual machine using the new virtual machine wizard. Jul 07, 2018 free up esxi local drive vmfs datastore space after deleting data in a thin provisioned windows. Increasing the vmdk size can be done in gui but decreasing the size of vmdk is not allowed. To shrink a vmdk we can use an esx command line tool vmkfstools, but first you have to zero out any free space on your thin provisioned disk. In this article, we are going to consider the storage preallocation aspect of virtual disk settings in detail and find out what thick and thin provisioning are, how they differ, and which of these storage preallocation types is better for your infrastructure. Powercli to find all vms with thick provisioned vmdk. For storage vmotion it eliminates the requirement for storage vmotion or the array when offloaded by vaai xcopy primitive to relocate white space. Zero free space using sdelete to shrink thin provisioned vmdk. Reducing the size of a thick provisioned vmdk without vmotion, copy or clone. Growing, thinning, and shrinking virtual disks for vmware esx and. A thinprovisioned virtual disk consumes only the space that it needs initially, and grows with time according to demand. In the fdisk l output you can see that you have a 35gb disk devsda3.
Thin provisioning allows you to report more virtual storage space than there is real physical capacity. Dec 05, 2011 reclaim free space in thin provisioned vmdk disk. When a virtual machine is powered on, you shrink its. So how i can reduce the 16 gb size for an linux vm. Nov 23, 2014 this post demonstrates various ways to identify the disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk.
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