Considerations, concerns or questions RE Thin Provisioning.

Similar Questions

• Question about thin provisioned disks

  I did some searching but can't find specific answers, I need and I apologize in advance if these questions are public knowledge. I know also my setup is very small compared to most houses VMWare normally using these forums, but we are moving slowly in the 2nd Decade of the 21st century (or try).

  I have a new install ESXi 5 and move during one ESX3 host that has about a dozen of VMs on it.  I recently built vCenter host servers and my future view connection server.  I'm kind to vCenter again as my previous installation of ESX 3 was a single server and us were not investing in the vCenter at the time option (missed a lot of features and ease of upgrade during this transition, but 20/20 declining).  I'm a little green in using vCenter so take pitty on my ignorance.

  It's more time than I wanted to and I just want to know the best way to change these 2 servers (recently built and configured systems Win 2008 R2) to thin provisioned disks.  I need to keep all the storage space I can and beyond the obvious problem of being able to provide more space than you physically, I have no problem to do so (in addition to get them changed).  If there are negatives I'm missing, please report them to me.  The possiblities that I see are:

  The clone and thin provision then delete the originals.

  Use the stand-alone converter on them (from above).

  Completely rebuild thin provisioned with disks.

  If someone can give me a quick list of possible problems and pitfalls for these opportunities or to get to a better suggestion, please do so and thanks in advance.

  Manual of Clark

  PRIMOS Inc.

  Since you have storage vMotion the clone or standalone VMware converter are both viable options.   Not sure about the disadvantages of these options.

  You didn't say what kind of server it is, but I'm always careful about the cloning of the domain controllers.   Without the option for storage vmotion I rebuild a DC from scratch.

  Post edited by: mittim12

• Question of thin provision

  I'm new to ESXi so I hope that this question has not been answered before but I couldn't find anything about it.  I have a box of ESXi 4 with some VMS with placed disks in service purposes.  When I look into the virtual computers tab of the used space on some of them is presented as a couple KB.  I know it must be less than the space put into service and that's the whole idea of Thin Provisioning, but this tab does not appear to take into account what the VM actually uses, because it appears only a few KB.  What is the problem?

  Ben

  Hello

  for example, you can update (click on refresh word/link) in the summary of the VM tab.

  Also, you can do the same thing in the tab displaying data warehouses.

  A saludo/best regards,.

  Pablo

  Please consider providing any useful answer. Thank you!! - Por favor considered premiar las useful responses. MUCHAS gracias!

• Thin provisioning question

  Tonight

  We recently P2V. by 4 Dell servers that all went well.

  When it came to thin provisioning of storage, we encountered a slight impediment. No matter what we do, we cannot recover any space with a provisioning.

  For example, we have only one server, 62 GB C. We have done the following:

  Defragmented

  CHKDSK would be

  SDelete - c (and even z, followed by another - c)

  Then migrate to another store of data configured as thin. We seem to get 0 space back even if Windows reports being 31.6 GB of free disk space.

  Don't get me wrong in the past doing the 4 steps above still retrieved the free space, but just this time on all 4 servers, we cannot recover anything.

  I have even converted to thick, and then to thin in case something to be funny.

  With the help of ESX 4 fully patched on all hosts. The only thing I can think is that when we thin put in service in the past, we were running ESX 4 with no patches and we have recently updated to the current version, but I can't really believe that a fix/update would have broken something as Basic.

  Any idea?

  There is a very simple solution for this problem, I found a couple of weeks ago.

  Do the usual "sdelete - c C:" stuff, and then migrate as Thin put in service in a store of data with a * different blocksize *.

  Then it just works how it has always been.

  It's only when you migrate it to a store of data with the same size block, it's broken.

  --

  Jules

  [email protected]

  www.Jules.FM

• thin provisioning considerations

  We are currently evaluating using fine provisionig in a full server environment (not customers/VDI)

  are there warnings and best practices?

  I mean:

  a provisioning induced fragmentation and degradation of performance on the vmfs datastore?

  What happens when a data store is overcommitted and a virtual machine tries to allocate more storage? the virtual machine stop suddenly?

  Hello.

  are there warnings and best practices?

  The largest practices and warning the two is to have additional monitoring to make sure that you do not run out of space.  vCenter that is out of the box, but make sure that it is set up to your liking.

  Other warnings:

  Race defragments will cause thin discs (s) to develop at varying degrees.

  Cannot be used for FT enabled VMs in vSphere.

  a provisioning induced fragmentation and degradation of performance on the vmfs datastore?

  Fragmentation is not a problem.  For write intensive workloads, there is a performance impact.  Learn more about the performance in the study of the Performance of VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning.

  What happens when a data store is overcommitted and a virtual machine tries to allocate more storage? the virtual machine stop suddenly?

  More about that in "[Easy recovery of a data store full VMware ESX | ]. "[http://www.vcritical.com/2009/10/Easy-Recovery-from-a-full-VMware-ESX-datastore/]" on the site of Eric Gray.

  Good luck!

• Thin Provisioning LUNS and virtual disks

  Hi all

  I recently came across a problem with our VMware View environment, where in vCenter about 20 of our virtual office message that there is no more space left. When I looked at the data warehouses that store with my clones related, they have both said more than 200 GB of free space.

  In an attempt to clarify the environment, but do not go off-topic, some of our pools view are configured to give each virtual desktop a disposable disc service end of 4 GB (Temp and swap files). I noticed that in vCenter, the question asked to VMware for more memory space pointed to these disposable disks.

  I was with the support of a few hours... on the side of EMC Clarion, LUN (which are thin provisioned) also showed full... but VMware support was able to create a 1 GB file on the data store that was full according to the Clarion.

  We sent EMC our papers and they were back and just said the table is fine, the LUN was out of space... but this does not explain to me why vSphere showed the LUN as having 200 GB free. EMC said they did not know and I need to talk with VMware. I'm confused, if the LUN was not always full, how we were able to create the 1 GB file on the data store?

  Curiously, all the desktop computers that do not have the disk of 4 GB disposable were very well... they had no problem. I'm almost thinking, perhaps disposable disc was full of temp and file exchange and that where this problem started, but I can't seem to be able to confirm that the 4 GB.

  Another thing is, began to be blocked on this data store, even if these virtual desktops, have been removed from the files. I'm unable to delete records in the data store. I know that I can restart the hosts to unlock, but let's just delete this store of data/lun individual completely.

  I was wondering if anyone has had similar problems or has any advice?

  Mike

  Teas because there are 2 parts of the area of thin provisioning.

  When you create a thin LUN on the side of the table, regardless of the size, it only * affects * about 1 GB (for Clariion).  Like many parts of this LUN if written, it allocates more.

  Now when you create an om VMFS file, unless you use eagerzeroedthick (which you're not), there still, not all these data in a 1 GB (10GB or other) is actually hit or written to the creation time.  Thus, the table side only sees (for example) hit 16 MB.  Now to delete some files on the side of VMFS.  The table does not know that those "affected" blocks are now free (because VMware doesn't have the ability to communicate that back to the table), so it independently as always in use.  As a result, you end up with a shift of how is used according to the table, and the file system.

  So now consider a 500 GB LUN, who think that the painting is "full", but said VMFS has 200 GB of free.  That 200 GB was probably written at a time in its history, then deleted.  Thus, full to the table, but not the file system.  When you create small files, VMFS is overwhelming the space previously used, which the Board considers acceptable, but as soon as you try to use the space that is not be 'recycled', it barfs, because its out of space on the backend.

• Thin provisioning alert

  Hello
  Is it possible to put an alarm on overuse datastore (Thin Provisioning)?
  Kind regards
  Ronald

  Hello Ronald.
  Space in metric data (Thin Provisioning) store service is not perceived by the current collector agent (I think that you will need to create a custom script agent to recover). Most likely will be available in the new version of the collector agent in the next version of vFogight.
  Concerning

• Default MARVIN and Thin Provisioning storage policy

  Hello

  When you use the default storage of MARVIN to vSAN on our new Evo strategy, it seems that all VMs are thick provisioned, not thin.

  My question is, why has it chosen default thick provisioning provisioning method for the storage of MARVIN policy? My understanding of vSAN vanilla is that a provisioning is the default value. I plan to create a new storage for provisioning strategy, but first of all, I would like to understand if thick is preferred on the Evo and, if so, why?

  Thanks in advance.

  It's quite strange - because by default in Evo must be a provisioning is not thick...

  The Evo has to ship to the QEP with the same default values as VSAN. As the team of VSANS, we would recommend thin provisioning...

  Can you confirm that the policy is set to thick. Maybe a screenshot of the policy upgrade...?

  This could be a factory error, or maybe a change not verified by a rogue administrator?

  Can I ask who is the partner of QEP. It may be useful if you send (using posts here) what is Device Evo... (you'll find this under 'health' in the user interface of Evo, next to the health of system - ID is probably something like MAR12345604...

  Kind regards

  Mike

• New-VM cmdlet always deploys "Thin-provisioned" VMs - need help

  Hi all

  I am at a total loss on this and spent several days trying to figure out what's wrong.  I'm deploying a new virtual machine from a template using PowerCLI version 5.1 Release 1.  The model is thin-set as all our models are, but when you specify my "New - VM" command, the resulting virtual machine always deploys as thin-provisioned even if I specify "thick".  Here is the command I use:

  PowerCLI C:\ > New-VM-model $templatename - $datastoreClustername - DiskStorageFormat EagerZeroedThick - $hostname - VMHost Datastore name $newVMname - location $foldername

  The above command returns the following error that 'EagerZeroedThick' is not a valid for the parameter - DiskStorageFormat option (although I see it clearly is done by "Get-Help-detailed New - VM")...:

  New - VM: 20/02/2014 12:09:18 new - the specified invalid VM storage format. Valid values are "Thin" and "thick".

  Online: 1 character: 7

  + New-VM < < < <-Template (model Get - Id VirtualMachine - vm - 1060) Datastore - Orion1_DSCluster - DiskStorageFormat EagerZeroe

  dThick - VMHost orion2esx01.cisco.com - name rcdn6-vm91-8-location "generic user (jstest).

  + CategoryInfo: InvalidArgument: (:)) [new-VM], InvalidArgument)

  + FullyQualifiedErrorId: Client20_VMServiceImpl_GetnerateCloneSpec_IvalidStorageFormat, VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmd

  lets.Commands.NewVM

  So I try the same command above, but this time by using 'thick ':

  PowerCLI C:\ > New-VM-model $templatename Datastore thick - VMHost $hostname - DiskStorageFormat - $datastoreClustername - name $newVMname - location $foldername

  The above command will successfully deploy a new virtual machine to the specified model, but the resulting virtual machine will always be Approvisionnés Thin rather than thick as I said...

  I have Google had the devil on this issue and did not happen to something that helps me...  I tried all the combinations of parameters, and the parameter order hoping that would be the thing without result.  As I said, I am at a complete loss and hope someone here can point me in the right direction.

  Sum, my 2 questions are:

  1. Why is EagerZeroedThick not considered as a valid option for the setting -DiskStorageFormat even if "Get-Help-detailed New - VM" clearly states that it is?  (I've seen a lot of example online of people using this option as well)
  2. Why the new virtual machine being deployed as a thin-put in service of the virtual machine, even if I specify thick for the setting -DiskStorageFormat of New - VM?

  It is a 1 vCenter/vSphere 5.1 update environment.

  Thanks in advance for your help.

  I finally received a response from the Vmware Support on this topic and thought I'd share it for anyone else running in this issue:

  VMware support:

  "I confirmed and discovered that it is a bug that is already running of our public relations team that suits him.

  And confirmed that this will be fixed in the next major release of VMware CLI power.

  And now, there is no ETA for it but I think would it as well as ESXi 5.5 U1 version but I can't confirm it. »

• Save space on the disc thin provision

  Hello.

  I have a virtual machine that has thin provisioned N. 3 disks:

  • 1-> provisioned size 20 GB
  • 2nd-> size 3 GB provisioned
  • 3-> provisioned size 20 GB

  If I look on the use of the storage on the server ESXi 5 (VI client) I see this:

  

  But if I connect on the virtual computer, I see this:

  

  With a simple calculation, I don't see that really used on the virtual machine storage size is only (20 - 8,64) + (3-0, 746) + (20 - 5,46) = 28,15 GB.

  Very different 40,48 GB storage used .

  The question is:

  is it possible to reclaim unused storage space?

  In other words: is it possible to align the "storage used" showed on the resources of the ESXi server to that actually used from the VM?

  Thanks in advance.

  You can use vmkfstools with the option ofpunchzero to recover the disk space of the thin configured virtual disks. To do this, you must first set to zero unused space within the OS itself invited, then turn off the virtual machine and run the vmkfstools command.

  André

• Ability to store data when thin provisioned

  Hi all

  VSphere 4.1 running in a cluster of two hosts, this cluster uses a Dell Equalogic PS4000 SAN for storage.

  Confusion I have is with thin configured data stores and my Exchange Server (2010) - running on MS Server 2008 R2 Ent.

  Exchange server uses three data warehouses on the San, one for the OS, one for data and one for newspapers.

  The data of databases store is the one that gives me problems, it has been defined as thin provisioned 750 GB, when I look on the SAN & via VCenter he said 90% full until she went to 100% after the SAN sent several alerts - the virtual machine then crashed with out-of-space error.

  To cut a long story short, I have twol questions

  (1) in this case why the SAN & VMWare say the data store is full, BUT when I connect to the virtual Windows computer it was about 50% in use?

  (2) when the data store that contains the databases filled I don't understand Exchange has fallen more but why why the crash of the VM?  The OS data store still had plenty of free space.

  I got this error by increasing the space of 100 GB to 850 GB data store while the virtual machine is very well (even if Windows was complaining to a stop suddenly unexpected).

  Thanks in advance for your help.

  K

  And without perspective, as it was put in service end and touch 750 GB, 300 GB, then was removed, it would not 750Go because it may not decrease in size - is that correct?

  (This would answer why the SAN says he uses 750Go of 750 GB, but Windows thinks there ish 300 GB free).

  Yes, that's correct... the recovery of unused/dead/removed space don't is not automatically made.

• Thin provisioning / "right-size" database disk

  OK, so I have the setting permissions and ready to deploy to the device.  I don't want to have a 200 + GB DB hard.  I know they say there is a special way, using the OVFTool application if you are using vSphere 4.0.  We run vCenter 4.1 and 4.1 ESXi hosts.  To specify the hard size I want, will it still thinly provision the device with the OVFTool?  I'm looking for clarity in this before deploying the machine, because I will be setting LUN space based on drive of 75 GB database (with room for future growth in LUN).  I apologize if this has already been covered, but I didn't see any other posts related to my question.

  virtualhudak,

  Technically, you should be prevented to deploy the virtual appliance CapacityIQ on a LUN with only 125 GB of free space on the disk.

  You need a data store with at least 258 GB free space on the drive in order to deploy the appliance CapacityIQ. That you complete the deployment wizard, two of the questions asked are if you want the first disk to be configured as a disk, thin or thick. and the same question for the second disk (/ data).

  Once you have deployed the virtual appliance successfully, you can follow the steps to reduce the size of the second (/ data) disk.

  James Ang | VMware engineering
  VMware vCenter operations
  VMware vCenter CapacityIQ
  VMware Capacity Planner
  VMware vCenter Guided Consolidation

• Thin provision NFS works only for instant VMDK

  Hi guys,.

  We have a host of ESXi 4.1 using NFS as a storage device. NFS is provided by the platform, Bluearc Mercury.

  Whenever I create a new virtual machine, for Thin Provisioning option is checked but also gray outside. There is a line saying:

  "Actual allocation policy will be determined by the NFS server.

  I'll check the newly created VMDK and it's a thick disk, it consumes as much disk space I put for the disc size.

  So, it makes me believe that the Bluearc Mercury does not support provisioning.

  The strange thing happens after that I did a snapshot, another VMDK as server - 0001.vmdk was created, and it's the thin disk.

  Someone at - it the similar problem?

  Kind regards

  Derrick

  Showmanlkz,

  On the BlueArc server, file systems are provisioned files, thin as VMDK files are created as "fragmented files".  Just a slight difference in terminology, but the effect is what you're looking for in what concerns the commissioning only the disk blocks that are actually used (thin provisioning).

  If you have created a 10 GB VMDK file, but have only 5 GB of data on the inside, only pointers to these 5 GB of data blocks will be created.  Us will not pointers to blocks of empty data.  Standard orders will make reference to the metadata VMDK structure and will report on the 10 GB file.  In order for a command 'df' to show the use of real drive (5 GB), rather than the allocated size (10 GB), you must enable the "true fragmented file" mode.  Contact the BlueArc TAC for the real run command.

  Snapshots are a completely different beast.  By default, they are only pointers to a point static instant copy.  However, if you use our new feature JetClone to create clones in entry level file, these files will be also thin provisioned, only as the clone diverges in content data from the original VM has been created between more and more.

  Julie HG

  Product Manager, BlueArc

• Drive Thin provisioning of support in the free version of ESXi 4.1

  Hello!

  Drive thin provisioning is supported in the free version of ESXi 4.1?

  Concerning

  YES

• Thin Provisioning does not work or unable to find space?

  Hello

  I have about 30 virtual machines using thin provisioning format. I found 1 especially with a 20 GB drive, TYPE THIN and 19.9 GB used. I entered in the console, check use of space inside the linux and it has 90% free. It uses only 2 GB.

  My question is why not taking advantage of the thin provisiong as other virtual machines. Any ideas?

  Post edited by: vmroyale to remove the PLUGS all THE of the subject line

  Fill the empty space with zero and do svmotion with thin disk as target, it should reclaim the unused space.

  It's how recover you for example 10 gigabytes of Linux root fs

  DD if = / dev/zero/foo bs = 10240 count = 1 M

  RM foo

  then svmotion

  Tomi

  http://v-reality.info