Simple Explanation of DataStores

[huntingdragon]

I'm very much new to Vsphere Management and Vsphere tools in general. I've got a VMware ESXi 5.5 host with a single Windows Server 2016 VM on a Raid 5 with 4x2TB HDDs. There are two logical disks that seem to be thick provisioned (CANDC01.vmdk and CANDC01_3.vmdk) and then, in the datastore, there are, what seems to be, two thin disks (CANDC01-000001.vmdk and CANDC01_3-000001.vmdk). Are the -00001 disks completely separate? Are they necessary? The vSphere DataStore Browser does't give much information on their purpose.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Image attached. Thank you, community!

[daphnissov]

Those files are snapshot files (most likely). What snapshots do you have showing for the machine? If you don't need them, you should consolidate them as soon as possible.

[huntingdragon]

This was the only snapshot that shows when I use the Snapshot Manager

[daphnissov]

Then that snapshot is responsible for those 00000* files you see in that directory. It looks like BackupExec did not clean up after itself and so you should probably delete that snapshot. However, before doing so, make sure you're certain this is ok to do. It's also a good idea to have a full, standalone backup of this VM before committing very old snapshots.

[huntingdragon]

You may be on to something. I'm going to test something and will respond back with the results. I appreciate your knowledge!