2021-08-05, 09:01:43
Hello Grant,
The reason that taking a backup of the shut down VM works is because then it does not take a snapshot. At least right now, this will change in an update not so far away.
This is because you can then start the VM and the backup will still complete correctly. You will get settings to control that, but I might not expose that in the UI.
As for your problem. I'm unsure why Vimalin would time out. Where are you seeing the time out error?
Vimalin uses VMware's VIX API to create snapshots and down there I do not have options for time outs.
20 minutes for creating a new snapshot to complete is very long.
How is your virtual disk setup? Is the disk a single file or split over multiple files?
I highly recommend the split fiile approach.
I know that people like the “single disk” file approach and think that it is faster.. but the reality is that in practice it results in the exact opposite behavior.
Large virtual disks tend to get fragmented, are hard to handle in regards to snapshots (instead of committing a snapshot per slice, you now need full disk size x 2 in free space), are harder to fix when they end up corrupted (as the meta data is in the disk instead of a little additional meta data file) etc…
There are almost never good reasons to use the single file option, it won’t be faster at any time, you won’t notice the difference.
If you want to use a non split disk for performance, then also check the Pre-allocate disk space one or it won’t be faster. Note that you will still have the slow snapshot taking issues and all the other down sides.
See also:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware...-p/2819534
and:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware...-p/2817348
Also what is the file system that your VM lives on, is it exFAT by any chance?
I have had several support requests before that eventually were tracked down to running VM's on exFAT filesystem and resolved after switching to another file system.
--
Wil
The reason that taking a backup of the shut down VM works is because then it does not take a snapshot. At least right now, this will change in an update not so far away.
This is because you can then start the VM and the backup will still complete correctly. You will get settings to control that, but I might not expose that in the UI.
As for your problem. I'm unsure why Vimalin would time out. Where are you seeing the time out error?
Vimalin uses VMware's VIX API to create snapshots and down there I do not have options for time outs.
20 minutes for creating a new snapshot to complete is very long.
How is your virtual disk setup? Is the disk a single file or split over multiple files?
I highly recommend the split fiile approach.
I know that people like the “single disk” file approach and think that it is faster.. but the reality is that in practice it results in the exact opposite behavior.
Large virtual disks tend to get fragmented, are hard to handle in regards to snapshots (instead of committing a snapshot per slice, you now need full disk size x 2 in free space), are harder to fix when they end up corrupted (as the meta data is in the disk instead of a little additional meta data file) etc…
There are almost never good reasons to use the single file option, it won’t be faster at any time, you won’t notice the difference.
If you want to use a non split disk for performance, then also check the Pre-allocate disk space one or it won’t be faster. Note that you will still have the slow snapshot taking issues and all the other down sides.
See also:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware...-p/2819534
and:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware...-p/2817348
Also what is the file system that your VM lives on, is it exFAT by any chance?
I have had several support requests before that eventually were tracked down to running VM's on exFAT filesystem and resolved after switching to another file system.
--
Wil