I've been a Sysadmin for about two months, and before that, I worked as a Tier III Support tech. I'm pretty familiar with Hyper-V but still don't feel entirely confident in my server administration skills. I was recently tasked to expand a disk drive for a Windows VM on our critical file server, which seemed straightforward. However, I found that the disk size was grayed out, so I looked into it and learned that existing snapshots might be what's preventing me from expanding the disk. I had already shut down the VM to edit the disk and proceeded to delete all snapshots without checking their age — now I'm stuck waiting for a 40-day old, 7TB snapshot to delete. This is halting our file server with all company share drives just 13 hours before the workday starts. How bad is this situation?
6 Answers
If you have backups from midnight, just be aware you’ll lose some data that was edited after that time. Getting your server back up should be your priority right now, but hopefully, it won't take too long for those snapshots to delete. Just check disk I/O performance when you wake up!
Honestly, it might turn out okay! Those snapshots have likely been a problem for a while, and now you're correcting it. Just remember to stay on top of managing snapshots in the future. Automation can help; I have a script that checks for them weekly to avoid this headache.
Welcome to the club! It’s all part of the learning curve. If anything, you're fixing a problem someone else created. Just remember to keep an eye on snapshot management moving forward; it’ll save you from this kind of stress. And hey, you're probably freeing up a lot of space in the long run!
For next time, consider switching to a Gen2 VM and using SCSI controllers for better management of snapshots. That way, you can delete them without shutting down your VM. It’s a good move to avoid these kinds of issues down the line. Also, don’t let snapshots linger longer than a couple of days; they can really cause problems like you're experiencing now.
Yeah, sounds like deleting those old snapshots is a blessing in disguise! If you can monitor the disk I/O performance, you might find that the VM could still boot while those snapshots are merging. But make sure to keep an eye on the time, just in case!
Thanks! I'll check back on it in the morning.
Don’t sweat it! I once mistakenly provisioned a massive disk from the wrong pool, and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We all make mistakes, and it’s how we learn. Just check on that snapshot merge in the morning and keep communicating with your team. You got this!
I appreciate it! I'm just really hoping it won't take forever to come back online.