See if you are interested in a deeper knowledge of these files. In this guide we will not explain in detail the characteristics and structure of this file since during the troubleshooting process it is commonly ignored. The reality is that this file gets corrupt very easily and that is when the snapshots problem begins. It describes the characteristics of every snapshot : with or without memory, UID numbers, names of related files, etc. vmsd file contains the structure of the snapshot tree. vmsd, the settings and virtual memory (optional) is kept in the. vmx VM configuration fileĮach incremental snapshot description is held in the. vmdk and -delta.vmdk Snapshot disk/delta files. Why do we use delete instead of commit? Because the snapshot manager has only 2 buttons for the operation of committing snapshots and their names are ‘Delete’ and ‘Delete all’.Įvery time a snapshot is created several files are created or updated. Do not interpret ‘delete’ as deleting physically a file. Throughout all this document we will use delete and commit as synonyms. Delete All commits all the immediate snapshots before the You are here current state to the base disk and removes all existing snapshots for that virtual machine.Deletecommits the snapshot data to the parent and then removes the selected snapshot.The Go tocommand allows you to restore the state of any snapshot.The Snapshot Manager lets you review all the snapshots for the active virtual machine and act on them directly. You can take a snapshot while a virtual machine is powered on, powered off, or suspended. In general, it is best to take a snapshot when no applications in the virtual machine are communicating with other computers.
When you take a snapshot, be aware of other activity going on in the virtual machine and the likely effect of reverting to that snapshot. Also Memory cannot be snapshot’ed if any of the disks of the Virtual Machine are in independent mode.Īlthough you can take an undefined amount of snapshots, VMware supports only up to 32 levels. You must power off the virtual machine before taking a snapshot if the virtual machine has multiple disks in different disk modes. Snapshots are useful when you need to revert repeatedly to the same state but you don’t want to create multiple virtual machines or when you are going to apply changes which results you are unsure of. When you revert to a snapshot, you return all these items to the state they were in at the time you took that snapshot.
This troubleshooting guide explains basic concepts about Virtual Machine snapshots and different troubleshooting paths depending on the problem.