Delete independent non persistent disks

[raknar]

Hello everyone,

I noticed that all of my Veeam infrastructure VMs (VBR Server, 3 backup Proxies) have independent non-persistent disks next to their normal dependent system disks. In vsphere client, the consolidation option under snapshot is greyed out. The closest KB article I found is KB1775. According to the article, I can remove these disks from the VM, but I should not delete them from storage (" Do not check the box to delete files from datastore!"). If Veeam does not need them, I would like to delete them to free the wasted storage space. Can I check that box?

Thanks in advance

[Mildur]

If they are stucked hot added disks, then this are disks from the production vms.
They will be connected to the veeam proxy, when a backup is running. After the backup is finished, the connection to the proxy vm should be removed automatically. This is called "Hot Add"-Backup Mode.

Don't delete them, because they could be vmdks from your production vms.
Only remove them from the proxy vm like the kb told you to do. But do not delete them from the datastore
DO NOT check that option to remove them from the datastore.

[raknar]

Ok, thanks. What will happen to these disks if I remove them from the VM? Will their vmdk files stay in the VM folder forever?

[Mildur]

This vmdks should be in the folder of the production vm, to which they belong.
If you remove the connection from the vmdk to the proxy vm, they will stay in that folder. They will not be moved out of the folder they are stored.

If the vmdks are orphaned (the production vm was deleted), then you can delete it from the datastore. But this needs to be carefully investigated by you.
You need to make sure, that this vmdks are not connected to any productive vm or that you don't need it anywhere else. Then you can delete them.

[mriesenbeck]

Ok, thanks. What will happen to these disks if I remove them from the VM? Will their vmdk files stay in the VM folder forever?

If you follow the path to where the disks are located, you should see the actual location on the storage, which should not be the folder in which the veeam server files reside, if this is indeed a matter of hot add disks not having been unmounted.

One of the reasons I used NBD method always, to prevent this. That is a setting of the VMWare proxy.