Fix VMware: Virtual Machine Disk Consolidation Is Needed Status
VMware vSphere is the cloud computing platform of VMware. The platform provides great services and reliability if all the requirements are met. However; there are times when users experience the virtual machine disk consolidation needed status. The error is experienced by VMware vSphere clients and the system administrators are compelled to fix it as soon as possible.
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VMware Disk Consolidation
Here the VMware Disk Consolidation is the process of merging virtual disk files with virtual machine snapshots. While merging them, all the files will be placed on Delta disk and no harm will be made to virtual machine storage. Still, you will need to be careful here.
Delta Disk is the newly created when you will merge the virtual disk files with virtual machine snapshots. When the combining of virtual disk files and snapshots became huge in size, the process can be degrading, and sometimes you can also experience the virtual machine disk consolidation is needed status.
Why do you experience the virtual machine disk consolidation needed status?
Here are some of the reasons why you are experiencing the “virtual machine disk consolidation needed” status on your VMware vSphere (more about VMware vSphere). The main reason can be the deleting of snapshots which can also cause problems to virtual machine disk files and log files. The most possible reason for damaging the snapshots is by using the Delete or Delete all options.
- While consolidating the VM snapshots and virtual disk files, there is no space on VMFS.
- There is possibility that you have less then 1 GB of free storage on your VMFS while consolidation. You will need a total of 1 GB or more to perform the operation.
- If you have connected your storage system to ESXi Host for running your VM, then you can experience the error.
- Unstable connection between the ESXi and vCenter can also cause the error.
- Most of the times users are experiencing the error due to locked snapshots.
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How Virtual Machine Disk Consolidation status?
To fix the error, you are going to select the virtual machine first. Then you are will right-click on the virtual machine, there you will select the Snapshots > Consolidate. You will be asked for confirmation, click on Yes.
NOTE: While performing the Consolidate or the operation is given below, you will probably lose all your data on your virtual machine. Try to use the VMware VM backup feature to prevent data loss.
Some error that you might encounter while performing the disk consolidation operation and their fixes
It is most likely that you will experience the “Unable to access file since it is locked. An error occurred while consolidating disks: Failed to lock the file. Consolidation failed for disk node ‘scsi0:0’.” on your VMware. So, here is how to fix the error:
- For the purpose, you are going to restart management agent of ESXi server. To restart the agents, we are going to open the Open ESXi Shell and use the command below:
services.sh restartor
/etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restartAlternative: there is another alternative method to restart the agents with the commands too. You can open ESXi direct console and there you will find the Troubleshooting Options. Select the Restart Management Agents. To activate you will press Enter and confirm you will click on F11.
- Here you are going to check, if your files are locked with command below:
vmfsfilelockinfo -p /vmfs/volumes/vm_datastore/vm_name/vm_name.vmx- Check for the hostd log file and also try to identify the paths that leads to data store where all VM files are located.
cat /var/log/hostd.log |grep -i vm_name- Now in VM directory, you are going to check the VM files location.
cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name- Use the command below to list all the ESXi hosted files that locked and caused the problem.
for i in `ls`; do vmfsfilelockinfo -p $i ;done|grep 'is locked in\|Host owning the lock\|Total time taken' | sed 's|Host owning the lock on file is||g'|sed 's|Total time|---|g' | awk '{print $1}' |uniq- And the last step will be to restart the ESXI management agents that includes both hostd and vpxa services too.
/etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restartRelated: How to Fix macOS Big Sur (BiError Domain Error 3.)?
