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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?

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  • The stats that your getting from the datastores -- is that from VirtualCenter or are you actually logging into the ESX Server and doing a df?
    – grufftech
    Jan 12, 2010 at 0:25

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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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  • Datastore=67G Virtual_1_files=25G Virtual_2_files=25G Virtual_1_RAM=2G Virtual_2_RAM=2G Virtual_1_Swap=2G Virtual_2_Swap=2G * swapfile location = virtual machine directory it just doesn't add up
    – Cristian
    Jan 11, 2010 at 22:27
  • Have you got any snapshots running on those VM's? Also How many vCPU's and are they 32bit or 64bit VM's - Virtualization overhead (memory required for the Hypervisor that also needs to be covered by swap) is higher when you have more vCPU's, and is higher for 64bit machines than 32bit.
    – Helvick
    Jan 11, 2010 at 22:39
  • one of the two virtuals has one snapshot, the other one had two but I deleted them from snapshot manager both are 32bit and both have only 1 cpu I understand that VMWare will need "some" space for each feature that you mentioned, but do you know how much space? is there such a doc? thanks!
    – Cristian
    Jan 12, 2010 at 0:15

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