Why are there so many .vmdk files for one machine?

[AnthBro]

Hi

Recently we had backups fail for a VM <we use EMC avamar>, we browsed the datastore and had a look at the folder the vm was in and were very suprised by what we saw, <please see attached file.>

For those not familiar with Change Block Tracking the ctk-vmdk files are for CBT, there should be one ctk-vmdk file per vmdk file so I'm not so worried about those.  What I don't understand is why the diskname-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.vmdk files are there, and more importantly how to get rid of them without losing any data.

The disk is 80GB thick provisioned which is also puzzling me as I'm not sure where my actual data is as the ucmbe5k.vmdk is only 14GB in size.  It seems the UCMBE5K-6645811354e9c13 is now the real disk but I'm not sure why.

If anyone can shed some light on how I can get this back to one vmdk file that would be great.  If you have any more questions let me know and I'll try and answer them for you.

The machine is RHEL.

thanks

anthony

[mcowger]

These are all CBT tracking files and snapshots.

If you disable CBT and re-enable it on the VM  and delete all snapshots it should clear them up.

[AnthBro]

Ok, I can do that do I need to power down the VM to do so.

And when you say delete snapshots do you mean just delete from disk, or is there some other method to do this.

My concern is if I delete all the snapshots does that mean everything including the 80GB file so I'll only have the 14GB file left,

that scares me a little as the disk is 80GB thick provisioned and it seems there is only 14GB in that file.

[mcowger]

Can be done 100% online.

1. Delete all snapshots (using GUI)
2. Disable CBT
3. Take snapshot (it triggers something internally for CBT.
4. Enable CBT.
5. Take another snapshot (triggers CBT)
6. Delete all snapshots (using GUI)

Do NOT go mucking around the filesystem!

[AnthBro]

Ok so don't browse the datastore, understood.

When I go to snapshot manager there are no snapshots, is that what you meant by GUI??

If not where can I view these CBT snapshots in the GUI?

BTW thanks for your help.

[AnthBro]

So I looked up disabling CBT and it states

o disable CBT:

1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
3. Click the Options tab.
4. Click General under the Advanced section and then click Configuration Parameters. The Configuration Parameters dialog opens.
5. Set the ctkEnabled parameter to false for the corresponding SCSI disk.

yet you said it could be done online?

I tried to go that location with the machine online and Configuration Parameters were greyed out, on a powered of machine it is not.

So can you tell me what to do to disable CBT while the machine is online?

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

If you have vmotion enable , then you have to just do the storage vmotion , during this process all the files which are not linked to VM will not move to the destination and will remain in the same datastore and you can delete it them to clear up the space.

OR

You can Remove the file manually from an SSH session using rm.

i.e Edit the .vmdk descriptor file, comment out the line starting with changeTrackPath and delete the file through the datastore browser

Sample

# Change Tracking File

#changeTrackPath="ABCD-000002-ctk.vmdk"