VMWare Backup spawning vmdk files

[seanbh]

The datastore on on e of our VMWare servers is running very low of disk space as it seems to be spawning a new vmdk every time a full backup of the VM is run from Backup Exec (2010 R3 SP2)

There are no snapshots associated with the VMs, however in addition to the main x.vmdk virtual disk a new vmdk file is being created x-0000001.vmdk, x-0000002.vmdk, x-0000003.vmdk...... For each of these there is also an associated -ctk.vmdk file.

I have tried creating a manual snapshot and then running a 'delete all' command but this does not get rid of the extra files.

[VJware]

Have seen this issue earlier...

have you installed the Remote Agent for Windows (RAWS) on the virtual machines ? If no, install the same & then backup again using the AVVI agent...

If yes, uninstall VMware Tools & re-install it without installing the VMware VSS driver...

[ZeRoC00L]

Check this vmware article how to commit snapshots when there are no snapshot entries in the snapshot manager:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100231...

[seanbh]

Thanks guys,

Starting to see real issues on the datastore - i.e full.

Tried the snapshot  > remove all, no luck with that , the files remain.

Moving on to try the clone option to create a new consolidated vmdk.

Did not have the Symantec agent installed on these boxes - backing up only full VMs, no need for the GRT.

Will deploy and also remove/upgrade the VM tools and will report back how it goes.