VMWare ESXi 3.5 “Could not power on VM: No space left on device”

virtualizationvmware-esxi

We have several VMWare ESXi boxes, and on some we get this message when trying to power on virtuals:

"Could not power on VM: No space left on device
Failed to power on VM"

The Datastore is 67G, we have two 25G virtuals and 16G free.
the other datastores, also have ~10…20G free

any idea how VMWare handles disk space?

Best Answer

How much memory does the VM you're trying to power on have?

ESX needs to create a swap file the same size of the VM's allocated memory when it's powered on; this swap file is usually create on the same datastore the VM resides in (but this behaviour can be changed).

So, if f.e. the VM has 4 GB virtual RAM, you'll need 4 GB free on the same datastore where the VM is.

If ESX is configured to create the swap file somewhere else, you'll of course need that much space there.

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VMWare ESXi stopped responding

I suspect that you're using consumer-grade drives for your storage? If so, these have onboard error recovery systems which will stall the volume while error recovery is being attempted. When this occurs, all storage serving can be delayed for a considerable period of time (10+ seconds).

In enterprise-grade drives, this 'feature' is disabled or never included, on the assumption that error recovery will be handled at the RAID-array level (RAID's implicitly assumed for enterprise deployments). For example, Western Digital refers to this feature (or removal of a feature!) as TLER - Time-Limited Error Recovery. In practical terms, it means a drive with TLER enabled won't stall out for an extended period of time to perform sector recovery/remapping/whatever.

So if you're running consumer drives, there's a fair chance you've hit an error on one of your disks, and it's repeatedly stalling out while it attempts to recover.

Solutions for this may be a bit tricky - I don't know if any third-party disk error scanners will support VMFS, and wouldn't risk pulling the disks and scanning them with ANYTHING, unless completely sure it won't trash the volume.

Centos – add space to virtual disk on vmware

You might want to try a different approach:

 - Power down the VM     
 - Create a new disk for the VM using the VMWARE control panel with the additional size you want
 - do a pvcreate on the new disk
 - do a vgextend adding the new disk
 - then you can do whatever lvextend you need.
 - REMEMBER the filesystems will need to be extended as well.

Best Answer

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VMWare ESXi stopped responding

Centos – add space to virtual disk on vmware

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