Understanding Virtual Disks and Sparse Allocation
1. From the doc here , i understand that allocation is fast when "Sparse Allocation" is used while creating a virtual disk and is slow when using non-sparse allocation. But does this mean that we are just talking about allocation alone? i.,e a one time activity - creation.
2. If my repository has 1TB space , then i see that i can create 'n' Virtual Disks each with a size of more than a 1TB(i.e, lets say 3-4 VDisks each with a size of 1TB); whereas, if i use non-sparse allocation, then i have to have the sum of the sizes of the disks to be lesser than 1TB.
FYI : I get an error if i allocate more than the space available: "OVMRU_002032E Excl-BigRepos - Repository size not large enough for new virtual disk of size: 999,999,999"
3. When i install OVS on a RAID-1 partition(with two virtual disks - say 100GB and 400GB), then, OVS picks up the 100GB disk by default and installs in there. And this 100GB is not 'visible' henceforth. Reasons?
1. Correct. Spare allocation means as the data is written the disk is expanded. This means, you're doing two operations as opposed to one with non sparse allocation. Thus, when writing to a virtual disk with a sparse allocation, the "write" could take longer if the disks doesn't have free space available.
2. Too a degree.... Yes. It depends on what storage you're using. On some storage, using compression and deduplication, this is not entire accurate. But, this is independent of anything to do with Oracle VM. Many storage environments now use "virtual allocation".
3. The default "LUN" used by by OVS can not be used for anything else. It is reserved. You will not able to use any free space on that LUN. The OVM manager expect "raw disks/LUN/shares" to used as storage. Such storage my be free of any filesystem, partition or etc. The Pools and repos necessary to run Oracle VM use a ocfs2 filesystem.
Similar Messages
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How to move a virtual disk's physical allocation within a Storage Pool
I have a pool of 3x500GB where one the physical drives is having intermittent issues. Currently, there is only one parity Virtual Disk of 300GB Fixed across 3 columns. I want to replace the bad drive with a good one. The old way (pre-2012) was replace the
disk, repair the RAID 5, resync and done. These basic steps are not working.
So far I have added a 4th 500GB drive to the pool. After searching and failing to find a way to move the data non-destructively, I decided to just pull the data cable on the disk I wanted to replace. After refresh/rescan, the disconnected drive shows "lost
communication" and the virtual disk (after trying to repair) shows "unknown" (but the volume on that disk is accessible in Explorer). When I try to remove the physical disk in Server Manager, I get "The selected physical disk cannot
be removed". Reading the error message, I see that the replacement disk cannot contain any part of a virtual disk. The replacement disk that I just added appears to have some space allocated (possibly because I have tried this same procedure a couple
of times already?). When I look at the parity disk properties/health, it shows all four physical disks under "physical disks in use".
I have deleted and recreated a lot of storage pools lately while trying to understand how they work but I would like to avoid that this time. The data on the virtual disk in question is highly deduplicated and it took quite a while to get it that way. Since
I can't find a way to copy/mirror the disk while keeping it fully deduplicated, I would need 3x the space to copy it all off, or a lot of time to load up and deduplicate a new virtual disk.
I have several questions:
1. How can a 3 column parity disk use parts of four physical disks? And can that be fixed without recreating the virtual disk?
2. When creating a virtual disk (for example a 3 column disk in a pool that has four or more physical drives), is there a way to specify which physical disks to use?
3. I understand that after a physical disk failure, the recovery process will move a virtual disk's allocation to a replacement disk, but can a virtual disk's allocation be moved manually among physical disks within the same storage pool
using a PS script?
4. Can a deduplicated virtual disk be moved/mirrored/backed up without expanding the data?
Any help is appreciated.Im still fighting with storage pools and need more tests to be done and have a lot of questions my self but ther goes what I understood so far.
You may define physical disks used for virtual disk by Powershell ,
for list of all commands follow this:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848705(v=wps.620).aspx ,
specific command defining physical disks to be used on already existing virtual disk:
Example 4: Manually assigning physical disks to a virtual disk
This example gets two physical disks that have already been added to the storage pool and designated as ManualSelect disks,
PhysicalDisk3 and PhysicalDisk4, and assigns them to the virtual disk
UserData.
PS C:\> Add-PhysicalDisk –VirtualDiskFriendlyName UserData –PhysicalDisks (Get-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName PhysicalDisk3, PhysicalDisk4)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848702(v=wps.620).aspx
If You haven't seen this yet You may check it out http://blogs.technet.com/b/yungchou/archive/2011/12/06/free-ebooks.aspx -
Shared virtual disks and linux installation
Dear all,
when i add some shared virtual disk to the virtual machine and start the instsallation of oracle linux i face a major performance issue and the system takes a long time to boot and linux cd's and start the instsallation process, i don't know why this issue is happening to me but it is giving me alot of troubes. i had to buy a new machine with husge configuration to try oracle VM and i feel like i bought for no benifits at all
your help will be appreciated/Avi,
Actually, if you have one server HA would do nothing for you. You need at least two servers for HA to be useful.
Also I would believe that since you only have one 500 gig drive I am sure it is a sata drive that you are using. That drive is running your Dom0 plus all other DomU's. The shared drive is a file on the filesystem under the /OVS directory your DomU system drive is a file on the /OVS filesystem. While your experience is still a little odd it would run but be really slow. You say that without the shared drive it runs OK so my first thought would be to drop the shared disk and recreate it since it sounds like you have nothing on it at this point in time anyway.
Could be that the file for the shared disk became corrupt with something else you had done. -
After I reinstalled Windows Server 2012 R2, I cannot attach my virtual disk
Hello,
After I reinstalled Windows Server 2012 R2, I cannot attach manually my virtual disk "MOVIES" :
http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/q-after-i-reinstalled-windows-server-2012-my-storage-spaces-are-no-longer-writabl
When i try this command : (http://technet.microsoft.com/fr-fr/Library/hh848641.aspx)
PS C:\>Connect-VirtualDisk –FriendlyName "MOVIES"I'have this error :PS C:\Windows\system32> Connect-VirtualDisk -FriendlyName "MOVIES"
Connect-VirtualDisk : Failed
Au caractère Ligne:1 : 1
+ Connect-VirtualDisk -FriendlyName "MOVIES"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (StorageWMI:ROOT/Microsoft/...SFT_VirtualDisk) [Connect-VirtualDisk], CimE
xception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : StorageWMI 4,Connect-VirtualDiskI have the same problem with right clic attach on the manage interfaceAll my disks are OKI d'ont understand why i have a problemCould' you help me Tanks in advance for your helpRegards,NicolasHello Elton,
I tried
numerous powershell
command to do anything
but I'm
lack of ideas.
All my disk are OK :
but
how can I do to make a
CheckDisk on a virtual disk because
there is no letter corresponding to the volume
It's only when i try to connect VirtualDisk to my Server
the problem happens ...
I try to repair the virtualDisk with powershell command :
PS C:\Windows\system32> Repair-VirtualDisk -FriendlyName MOVIESIt's works but it takes less than 2 seconds ...There is no solution?
I lost all my data? Can i try to delete virtual disk and recovery data with a recovery program,
is
that it might work?
Thanks you in advance for your help
Regards,
Nicolas -
Converting an existing virtual disk to a tiered disk
Is it possible to add an SSD drive to an existing pool and then convert an existing parity enabled disk to a tiered virtual disk? My pool consisteds of 3 3T SATA drives and I want to add a 120G SSD drive to improve performance. I don't see a
way to convert. I considered creating a new virtual disk and migrating the data but when I try to create a new disk within the pool with tearing enabled, it wouldn't let me select a parity layout.
Thanks in advance,
JoeHi,
Thanks for your posting.
I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Best Regards,
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
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Creating a Virtual Disk using Diskpart
Hi, I'm trying to study for a test on Windows 7 and I'm trying to install a Virtual disk and I keep getting the same error. The drive has been "cleaned" using the diskpart utility and is a 300 gb drive. here is the code that I used and the error
as copied from the command prompt. Any help would be great Thanks!!!!!!
DISKPART> create vdisk file="C:\test\disk1.vhd" maximum=24000
DiskPart has encountered an error: The system cannot find the path specified.
See the System Event Log for more information.Hi, slobodan21.
Here is the web page that contains the CREATE vdisk command you have been trying:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg252579.aspx
I am only guessing but... make sure you create a folder called test in the root of your C: drive.
Good luck!
Best wishes, Davin Mickelson -
Unable to repair degraded Virtual disks in Storage Spaces 2012R2
Hi all,
I have an anoying problem that I cannot seems to find a solution for.
I have a 2 node Failover Cluster with CSV-volumes consisting of 2 HP DL360 servers with 2 LSI 9300-16e HBAs each, connected to 3 Supermicro JBOD-cases with a total of 84 disks. With Storage spaces I have made 1 Pool with 6 virtual disks and 3 of these disks
are Degraded. However, when I look at the physical disks they are all fine and healthy, if I try to repair the disks it finishes without any error messages but the disk is still Degraded.
OS = Windows Server 2012R2
Anyone have an idea?
Thanks!Hello Partner,
Thanks so much for contacting Microsoft. This is Sophia who will help you with this issue.
From your description, I learnt that the issue you are experiencing is that you failed to repair degraded Virtual disks in Storage Spaces 2012 R2. Please let me
know if I misunderstand anything.
First of all, I would like to suggest you install the following hotfix to upgrade storage related files to the newest edition. After that, please test how the issue
goes.
==========================================
Package: This is to upgrade NTFS.sys.
KB Article Number(s): 2996802
Language: All (Global)
Platform: x64
Location: (http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%208.1/Windows%20Server%202012%20R2/sp1/Fix524134/9600/free/480025_intl_x64_zip.exe)
Package: This is to upgrade Msiscsi.sys
KB Article Number(s): 3000123
Language: All (Global)
Platform: x64
Location: (http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%208.1/Windows%20Server%202012%20R2/sp1/Fix524132/9600/free/479758_intl_x64_zip.exe)
Package: This is to upgrade MSDSM.sys & MPIO.SYS
KB Article Number(s): 2914743
Language: All (Global)
Platform: x64
Location: (http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%208.1/Windows%20Server%202012%20R2/sp1/Fix525821/9600/free/479581_intl_x64_zip.exe)
Best regards,
Sophia Sun
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. -
I have created a Shared Virtual Disk and created a filesystem on it via one of my VMs. I have also mounted it on another VM. Anything that VM#1 creates on the shared disk can't be seen by VM#2 and vice-versa. Is this the way the shared disk is supposed to work?
ratdude wrote:
I have created a Shared Virtual Disk and created a filesystem on it via one of my VMs. I have also mounted it on another VM. Anything that VM#1 creates on the shared disk can't be seen by VM#2 and vice-versa. Is this the way the shared disk is supposed to work?You have to run a clustered filesystem like OCFS2 on both machines for changes to be visible on all nodes at the same time. Just having the disk shared is not enough. This is exactly the same as connecting two physical machines to the same hard drive. :) -
How can I eject a virtual disk that keeps coming back?
For my MBP, with OS 10.6, I bought a WD eternal hard drive which comes with back-up software, "WD SmartWare." I use the Time Machine, and don't need other back-up software (I assume). A virtual disk holds the "SmartWare", and it shows on the desktop whenever the hard drive is connected.
Here's the problem: If I try to eject the virtual disk and the partitions that I've put on the drive, and put my MBP to sleep to move to another location, the virtual disk icon immediately reappears - it will not stay ejected. If I simply pull out the USB of the drive, pick up MBP and go about my business elsewhere, when I return and reconnect the drive I get a warning that I've disconnected the drive incorrectly and could lose data, hence "don't do that!"
So, so far the only way I can avoid the warning is to shut down the MBP and then disconnect the drive and leave. Then, the drive is happy.
Question: is there a way to eject the virtual drive so that it stays ejected, so I can disconnect the WD hard drive to allow me a change of physical location using sleep mode and not shut-down for the Mac?
Tomasif you use disk utility to delete all partitions on that drive and create a new partition and format it with mac os journalled your problem will be solved
-
I used disk management to set up a virtual disk on the hard drive. I copied data into the virtual disk. A few days later, the directory which contained the virtual disk and the virtual disk, itself was gone. Nothing in the recycle folder.
Fortunately, the content of the virtual disk had been backed up, but how do I prevent this from happening again? (Windows 8.1, Update for Windows 8.1 for x64-based Systems (KB2887595)
Installation date: 11/16/2013 12:16 PM
Installation status: Succeeded)Windows is not normally in the habit of deleting your files. You need not take special action because it's not supposed to do that in the first place.
There are some notable exceptions...
"Broken" desktop shortcuts are cleaned up.
Certain files under Windows.old are cleaned up after a few days.
Systems infected with malware lose files.
Systems experiencing disk failures may lose data from the hard drive.
Is it possible you accidentally moved it to a nearby folder? That can happen when an attempt to click on something is interpreted as a drag because of a small mouse movement.
Also be sure and check the integrity of your file system with CHKDSK.
-Noel
Detailed how-to in my eBooks:
Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options
Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options -
Creating a Master virtual hard disk and using the same for all other VM's
Hi,
We would like to create a master virtual hard disk and use the same for all other VM's. Can we do that ?
my requirements :
1) create 10 VM's
2) first create a master virtual hard disk with win OS and use the same to create the 10 VM's.
3) After creating the VM's change the HDD size.
-- if i have created master virtual disk with 500GB , and use the same for creating a virtual machine. can we change the HDD size to 1TB ?
After creating the VM's ,i will change the system names and activate the windows accordingly.
Will there be any implications ,if we can/will do like this.
Thanks.Hi Suren424,
I think Using Differencing Disks may cover your needs .
Please refer to following setps:
"Create the Parent Virtual Machine Configuration and Virtual Hard Disk
Install the Operating System, updates, and common software
Generalize the installation
Prepare the parent virtual hard disk
Create the differencing disks
Create virtual machines that use the differencing disks
For details please refer to follwing link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1393.hyper-v-virtual-machine-vm-parent-child-configuration-using-differencing-disks.aspx
Hope this helps
Best Regards
Elton Ji
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How to delete Ubuntu virtual desktop and free up allocated space in windows 8?
I have tried out Hyper-V for the first time to install Ubuntu desktop. During the installation process, 10GB of space is allocated. I believe this space would have been created as a separate partition and formatted
to linux file system. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Now I would like to remove the Ubuntu virtual desktop and free up the allocated space. I have deleted the desktop from the Hyper-V manager. Is this sufficient to free up the space?
Disk partition tool shows following partitions
Volume
Layout
Type
FS
Status
Capacity
Free
Volume (C;) Simple
Basic NTFS
Healthy(Boot, Page File ...) 218GB
8GB
Volume <nolabel> Simple
Basic Healthy(Recovery Partition)
450MB 450MB
Volume <nolabel>
Simple
Basic
Healthy(Recovery
Partition)
350MB
350MB
Volume <nolabel>
Simple
Basic
Healthy(Recovery
Partition)
10.5GB
10.5GB
Volume <nolabel>
Simple
Basic
Healthy(EFI
System Partition)
260MB
260MB
Volume <nolabel>
Simple
Basic
Healthy(Primary
Partition)
8GB
8GB
I am not sure of the unnamed, unused volume. Hence I listed all.
However Diskpart tool in command prompt does not show the last one [ 8gb]. Does this mean if this was allocated
to Virtual desktop? Please helpYou must delete the VHDx that you created when you created the VM.
This is the virtual disk that Ubuntu was installed into - you will not see this as a volume, you will see this as a VHDx file.
Brian Ehlert
http://ITProctology.blogspot.com
Learn. Apply. Repeat. -
Error: The largest virtual disk that can be allocated is: 0 MB.
hi, when a create a new virtual machine, Oracle VM Manager gives the following error:
Error: The largest virtual disk that can be allocated is: 0 MB.
I have enought disk space in all partitions on VM Server.
Has anyone solved this??... How to ....
Regards from Chile (and sorry for my poor english)
RENÉ FELIPE VIANCOS S.
Director / IT Manager
CENTRO DE INFORMÁTICA Y COMPUTACIÓN
(Informatics and Computing Center)
UNIVERSIDAD DE LA SERENA
www.userena.cl
Message was edited by:
user621885ok, i have changed for a new machine, and the error persists
Step (1), and the output of virt-install is:
[root@ovm21 winxpue5]# virt-install
Would you like a fully virtualized guest (yes or no)? This will allow you to run unmodified operating systems. yes
What is the name of your virtual machine? winkkxp
How much RAM should be allocated (in megabytes)? 1000
What would you like to use as the disk (path)? winkkxp
How large would you like the disk (winkkxp) to be (in gigabytes)? 5000
Would you like to enable graphics support? (yes or no) yes
What would you like to use for the virtual CD image? /OVS/iso_pool/winxpue5/winxpue5.iso
Starting install...
libvir: Xen Daemon error : GET operation failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/sbin/virt-install", line 476, in ?
main()
File "/usr/sbin/virt-install", line 440, in main
dom = guest.start_install(conscb)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/virtinst/XenGuest.py", line 379, in start_install
self._create_devices()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/virtinst/XenGuest.py", line 281, in createdevices
disk.setup()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/virtinst/XenGuest.py", line 96, in setup
os.write(fd, '\x00')
OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device
here is the df command output
S.ficheros Tamaño Usado Disp Uso% Montado en
/dev/sda2 3,0G 718M 2,1G 26% /
/dev/sda3 108G 755M 107G 1% /OVS
/dev/sda1 99M 24M 70M 26% /boot
tmpfs 257M 0 257M 0% /dev/shm
all filesystems have enought disk space....
Here is the content of the xend.log:
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] INFO (SrvDaemon:331) Xend Daemon started
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] INFO (SrvDaemon:335) Xend changeset: unavailable.
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] INFO (SrvDaemon:342) Xend version: Unknown.
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:132) XendDomainInfo.recreate({'max_vcpu_id': 1, 'cpu_time': 9577805624L, 'ssidref': 0, 'hvm': 0, 'shutdown_reason': 0, 'dying': 0, 'online_vcpus': 2, 'domid': 0, 'paused': 0, 'crashed': 0, 'running': 1, 'maxmem_kb': 4294967292L, 'shutdown': 0, 'mem_kb': 524288L, 'handle': [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], 'blocked': 0, 'name': 'Domain-0'})
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] INFO (XendDomainInfo:148) Recreating domain 0, UUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000. at /local/domain/0
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:2069) Storing VM details: {'on_xend_stop': 'ignore', 'shadow_memory': '0', 'uuid': '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', 'on_reboot': 'restart', 'image': '(linux (kernel ))', 'on_poweroff': 'destroy', 'on_xend_start': 'ignore', 'on_crash': 'restart', 'xend/restart_count': '0', 'vcpus': '2', 'vcpu_avail': '3', 'name': 'Domain-0'}
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:907) Storing domain details: {'name': 'Domain-0', 'console/limit': '1048576', 'memory/target': '524288', 'vm': '/vm/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', 'domid': '0', 'cpu/0/availability': 'online', 'cpu/1/availability': 'online', 'control/platform-feature-multiprocessor-suspend': '1'}
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomain:434) Adding Domain: 0
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomain:379) number of vcpus to use is 0
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] INFO (SrvServer:180) unix path=/var/lib/xend/xend-socket
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VBD.set_device not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VBD.set_type not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VM.get_auto_power_on not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VM.set_auto_power_on not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: debug.get_all not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: console.get_other_config not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: console.set_other_config not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VIF.get_network not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VIF.set_device not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VIF.set_MAC not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: VIF.set_MTU not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: session.get_all_records not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: event.get_record not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] WARNING (XendAPI:672) API call: event.get_all not found
[2008-03-09 21:48:35 2534] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:991) XendDomainInfo.handleShutdownWatch
[2008-03-09 21:48:38 2534] INFO (XMLRPCServer:149) Opening Unix domain socket XML-RPC server on /var/run/xend/xen-api.sock; authentication has been disabled for this server.
[2008-03-09 21:48:38 2534] INFO (XMLRPCServer:149) Opening Unix domain socket XML-RPC server on /var/run/xend/xmlrpc.sock.
Step(2) rpc output:
[root@ovm21 winxpue5]# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://admin:[email protected]:8899 get_free_space
get_free_space []
socket error! code=104, msg=Connection reset by peer
[root@ovm21 winxpue5]# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://system:[email protected]:8899 get_free_space
get_free_space []
socket error! code=104, msg=Connection reset by peer
[root@ovm21 winxpue5]# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://sys:[email protected]:8899 get_free_space
get_free_space []
socket error! code=104, msg=Connection reset by peer
my password for whole system is 'oracle'
some ideas ????
Regards
René Felipe Viancos. -
Recently, our mail server crashed at about 7pm one night, with the error 'There is no more space for virtual disk ServerName_2.vmdk. You might be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant volume, and clicking Retry. Click Cancel to terminate this session.'
When we click Retry, the server starts up OK.
There are no snapshots listed in Snapshot manager for any of the virtual machines on the host.
There is also free disk space available on the host and for the VM with the disk errors.
This happened at least three more times, often at bad times. Each time, we were able to click 'Retry' and the disk/system would allow the VM to start-up successfully.
I checked the Forums, the VMware support articles and the internet as I had not seen this problem before. I have completed the VSphere 5.1 - Fast Track course and this issue was NOT covered in the training.
Most of the advice on-line and even that on the VMware web-site was pointing to snapshots being the cause of this issue. There are no snapshots enabled and I cannot see evidence of snapshots ever being used.
- We are running VMware vsphere (5.1.0) and there are (were) 4 virtual machines running on the ESX host. We are using the free version of VMware/ESXi.
- The Hard disk types we are using for this Virtual Machine are 'Thin Provisioned'.
- There are 4 [Thin Provisioned] Hard Disks for this virtual machine.
- There are 6 CPUs
- There is 20GB of RAM (memory)
- The VM is running Windows Server 2008 R2 as the guest/VM operating system. It is an Exchange 2010 SP1 mail server. There is plenty of available disk space on all the drives. The [Exchange] log files are cleaned out regularly (automated).
I decided to move one of our non-critical servers off this host and on to another host to see if this helped the problem. This took quite some time, as we are not using HA or vmotion, nor do we have VCenter Server...nonetheless, I finally managed to get the non-critical server on to another host (n.b. This was a much smaller machine with less virtual resources assigned to it).
After moving the non-critical server off this host, we decided to monitor the Host and see if the issue resolved itself.
I checked the host about 6-10 times a day, from first thing in the morning till last thing at night - monitoring the performance of not only the Virtual Machine, but the ESXi host also.
There were no adverse performance issues. The only thing I did note, was in the Summary page on the ESX Host, under Storage, was If I right-clicked on the datastore and clicked refresh, then the free disk space would drop (ie from 140GB to 125GB).
After monitoring the host and VM for about 2 weeks, we did NOT have another instance of the above error.
Sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to give as much detail given this error has been raised before and snapshots are usually blamed as the cause.
My question is this:
If the ESX host had plenty of available disk capacity and there were no snapshots enabled on the VM (or any other VM's on the same host), then why did our Virtual machine crash with the error that 'there is not more space for virtual disk Servername_2.vmdk'?
How do we prevent this issue from happening if we don't know the underlying cause?
I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions.
If I have not provided enough info on the specs or environment, please let me know and I will provide more information.
Thanks all,
KurtThe type of storage is really based on your requirements, and your ability to withstand downtime.
iSCSI as you are using with a NAS such as Synology or QNAP. NAS Selector - Support - Synology - Network Attached Storage (NAS)
I wouldn't use iSCSI for Exchange or any database. It's a bit slow.
Do you have a single physical host? Then I'd probably to an external direct attached storage. This would be a card inserted in your host server that gives you multilane SAS/SATA connectivity (www.techcable.com/SAS-SATA/SAS-SATA.pps) and an external disk enclosure/array.
For multiple hosts to a single array, I recommend a fibre channel connection to a FC capable switch, and on to a FC connected array.
We used to use a HP P2000 (on old G1), but it's since been retired. Worked pretty well once firmware was upgraded. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/disk-storage/product-detail.html?oid=4118559#!tab=features. They can be connected via iSCSI, Fibre Channel or 6GB SAS so they are flexible and reasonably priced.
Recommendations:
Use RAID 6 with your large disk arrays. With large disks there is a measurable failure rate when rebuilding a failed RAID5 array based on MTBF.
Use smaller 15K disks in RAID 0+1 for speed on databases/Exchange.
Use slower 7.2K disks in RAID6 for file storage.
We are a small hospital and we have 3 VMware servers with dual CNA (FC and Ethernet in a single twinax cable) connections to 2 redundant Cisco Nexus 5K switches and then 4 Fibre Channel connections to an EMC VNX 5300. It's extremely fast with about 50 virtual servers, but was quite an investment. One thing we don't have to worry about is down time. If there ever is an equipment failure, we have redundant everything, including power split between two UPSs.
Our VNX has 3 tiers of performance. 3 100GB SSD "Fast Cache" in RAID 1 with hot spare, to keep the most used data ready, but it's not really a tier, however one could be built utilizing the same disks. A second tier is performance tier with a 8 600GB RAID 0+1 and hot spare. The third is a bunch of 7.2K 3TB disks in RAID6. The VNX autotiers, placing data on disks depending on where it's needed. The volumes are sliced and diced automatically in the background to make this happen and we never have to touch it. I used a demo of Solarwinds Storage Manager to monitor performance for a while and the utilization was always low, meaning all data access was fast, througout the day.
D -
OVM-4006 The largest virtual disk that can be allocated is 78,027 MB
G'Day List,
Greetings and best wishes.
I am hoping someone will be able to help me here:
PROBLEM:
I tried to "Create New Virtial Disk" for a particuler VM and it error out as shown in the subject line.
Figuring that it was a space issue, I stopped another VM with a 800GB D drive - Deleted the 800GB
drive and attempted to "Create New Virtual Disk" of only 580GB and got the same error.
I do not believe it has to do with the SAN so I am looking for an OVM reason for the error and a solution.
Anyone?
Thanks
FergHi,
When you say - deleted 800 Gb drive does that mean taht you deleted the storage space for that virtual machine , or completely deleted the machne from amanger
If you have 2.2 version for OVM server - it displays the info about max memory and max disk space available to use .
If you are getting space related error make sure that you delete the stuff from the server and not the entry only from the manager database.
Try selecting a VM which you want or plan to delete to free up the space
Go to 'Actions' Menu and select delete
next page - Check " Remove image files from storage"
And hit "delete"
This will remove the entry from the server as well and free up the space.
you can also login to the server and do "# df -h" .This will also show you how much sapce is really available on the disk .
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