Cannot reclaim space on VMFS store

[Jim Doogan]

Hey, hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I recently took over an ESXi instance, and have run into space issues on the box.

Physical Server: HP Proliant DL380p Gen 8

OS: ESXi 6.5 U2 Sept 2018 – Last Pre-Gen9 custom image​

License: VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus

I have a datastore, which is 2.73TB in size, and is VMFS5. Thin Provisioning is supported.

All the VM's are Thin Provisioned, but ESXi is not reclaiming space from deleted VM's, deleted files on the VM's, or deleted Snapshots.

Checking the disk information:

[root@esxi01:~] esxcli storage core device list -d naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206

naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206

   Display Name: Local HP Disk (naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206)

   Has Settable Display Name: true

   Size: 2861511

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206

   Vendor: HP     

   Model: LOGICAL VOLUME 

   Revision: 5.42

   SCSI Level: 5

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: true

   Is Local: true

   Is Removable: false

   Is SSD: false

   Is VVOL PE: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown

   Attached Filters:

  VAAI Status: unsupported

   Other UIDs: vml.0200020000600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e02064c4f47494341

   Is Shared Clusterwide: false

   Is Local SAS Device: true

   Is SAS: true

   Is USB: false

   Is Boot USB Device: false

   Is Boot Device: false

   Device Max Queue Depth: 1024

   No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32

   Drive Type: unknown

   RAID Level: unknown

   Number of Physical Drives: unknown

   Protection Enabled: false

   PI Activated: false

   PI Type: 0

   PI Protection Mask: NO PROTECTION

   Supported Guard Types: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   DIX Enabled: false

   DIX Guard Type: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   Emulated DIX/DIF Enabled: false

[root@esxi01:~] esxcli storage core device vaai status get -d naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206

naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206

   VAAI Plugin Name:

   ATS Status: unsupported

   Clone Status: unsupported

   Zero Status: unsupported

   Delete Status: unsupported

And i've checked the related configurations in esxi

Key	Name	Value	Default	Overridden

DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit	Enable hardware accelerated VMFS data initialization (requires compliant hardware)	1	1	No
DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedMove	Enable hardware accelerated VMFS data movement (requires compliant hardware)	1	1	No
DataMover.MaxHeapSize	Maximum size of the heap in MB used for data movement	64	64	No

VMFS3.HardwareAcceleratedLocking

Enable hardware accelerated VMFS locking (requires compliant hardware). Please see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2094604 before disabling this option

1

1

No

Trying the manual unmap also doesn't work

[root@esxi01:~] vmkfstools -y /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/

Volume '/vmfs/volumes/datastore2/' spans device 'naa.600508b1001caf2ad46535555b3e0206:1' that does not support unmap.

Devices backing volume /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/ do not support UNMAP.

So really I'm at a loss on where the problem is. Is it the physical disks, or the LUN.
Is there any way to enable this unmap command without having to rebuild the entire datastore?

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[Scott Vessey]

Moderator: Moved to vSphere Storage

[VirtPhysical]

I believe VAAI needs to be supported to use unmap

[Jim Doogan]

I have found lots of conflicting information online, some saying VMFS5 will support this, and some saying it does not.

I'm going out on a limb and say it doesn't.

I did find another workaround - but it's manual. A quick bash script will make it less tedious.

using vmkfstools -K (punchzero) on the VMDK files for the largest VM's will recover space on the datastore.

[Michelangelo81]

I've same problem but maybe VAAI support and so reclaim space it is possible only on SAN and NAS storage device and not for local attached storage.

in fact in my enviroment i'm able to reclaim space on my SAN attached to esxi, but no reclaim space on local storage attach on the same esxi.

MAYBE the problem is the local attached storage, that it is not support reclaim space???