Unreleased space after cancellation of VV

[micy1]

Hi.

I needed to reorganize the space for VMware ESXi servers.
I wanted to divide the original space of 9 TB on 3PAR into space of 6 TB and 3 TB for two ESXi.
Prior to the reorganization, 88% was allocated on 3PAR.

I did:
1. Cancellation of the original VVs on 3PAR, a total of 9 TB.
2. Creation of three VV, 3x 3 TB, total 9 TB.
3. New datastore 3PAR-CSW1, capacity 6 TB, created on ESXi-1.
3. Created VV 3 TB for the second ESXi-2.
4. While copying to the 3PAR-CSW1 datastore, the 3PAR was 99% full, leaving 911 GB.
    Why? I just redistributed 9 TB space to 9 TB space.
5. Executed compact command on all CPGs on 3PAR. Something has become loose, unallocated space is
    increased from 911 GB to 2,508 GB. 3PAR allocation is 94%.
6. Canceled one new VV 3 TB, again command compact of all CPGs, nothing has changed, still
    2,508 TB left free.

What happened? How to release space to the origin state of 88% allocation?

Thanks.

Milan

[Cali]

This is because you have vmfs-5 Datastore, that did not give back free Space to the Storage.
Use this command on one ESX:

esxcli storage vmfs unmap -l DATASTORENAME -n 6400

Format the new Datastore with vmfs-6 to fix this.

Cali

[micy1]

Hi Cali.

Thanks for your answer.

The datastore on ESXi-1 was version 6 and I removed it properly:

1. unmout datastore on ESXi-1

2. detache all its devices

3. unexport virtual volumes for ESXi-1 on 3PAR

4. rescan all adapters on ESXi-1 => unmounted and inaccessible datasore dismissed

5. delete VVs on 3PAR and then steps as I write already.

Milan