Manual Software Activation
| Measure | Recommendation | |----------|----------------| | | Daily backups with application-aware processing (Veeam, Nakivo, etc.). | | Snapshot limit | Never keep more than 3 snapshots; never exceed 72 hours. | | VMDK type | Use Thick Provision Eager Zeroed for critical VMs (better recoverability). | | Monitoring | Monitor vobd.log and vmkernel.log for early corruption warnings. | | Anti-virus | Exclude VMDK, VSWP, and VMEM files from real-time scanning. | | Storage health | Regularly check SMART stats on local storage and SAN health. |
| Failure Type | Description | Typical Symptoms | |--------------|-------------|--------------------| | | The small text header (.vmdk) linking to the flat data file is damaged. | "Failed to open disk", "Not a valid VMDK". | | Flat File Corruption | The binary data file (-flat.vmdk) has logical or physical errors. | VM fails to boot, disk read errors, file system issues. | | Snapshot Chain Break | Delta VMDKs (child disks) lose reference to the parent. | "Missing parent" error, orphaned disks. | | Accidental Deletion | VMDK files deleted from datastore but not overwritten. | VM configuration shows missing disk. | | VMFS Metadata Damage | Datastore volume corruption affecting VMDK storage. | Multiple VMs affected, files appear as 0KB or missing. | recovery vmdk file
vmkfstools -x repair /vmfs/volumes/datastore/vmname/vmname.vmdk | | Monitoring | Monitor vobd