Inflated disk still shows "Thin"

jibbajabba · June 2013

This is driving me a bit bonkers.

Here you can see a VM with a thin provisioned disk:

Which is confirmed by the UI as well

Now I am trying to inflate the vmdk

Once done, the disk should show "thick" ..

Still thin .. running the inflate command again "confirms" that it isn't thin any more

In addition to the error, the VMDK is still shown as thin in both, PowerCLI and the UI.

Has anyone seen this before ?

Only reference I can find is this

VMware KB: Inflating a virtual disk fails with the error: The disk is not thin-provisioned

So "You see this error if the virtual disk is not Thin Provisioned" - great, thanks.

Then I found this reference :

Virtualization & Cloud computing: Sphere client shows "wrong" disk provisioning type in VM properties after deployment from template

So the UI apparently updates once the VM is powered on.

Unfortunately this is an environment where I cannot power the VM on in question to test this, but I used the same environment to demonstrate a particular script which worked (changed to Thick etc.) and only now with more demonstrations it stopped working (and made me look like an idiot - well more than usual anyway)...

Anyone seen this before ?!? Can someone confirm that this is changing once the VM is being powered on ?

Edit: Jumped onto another environment - same test - powered VM on, still shows "Thin" after inflating ... WTH ... !??

Edit2: Interestingly enough, if you remove / re-attach the VMDK it changes to "Thick" ... getting weirder by the second.

Edit3: Same when inflating using the datastore browser

jibbajabba · June 2013

Solved ...

Reload of VMX file will do the trick .. Couldn't find a PowerCLI command but someone on the vmware forums helped me out, here for reference :

(Get-VM [VM-Name] | Get-View).Reload()

As a result

PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I].\clone.ps1 VM-1[/I][/B]

*******************
* Backup Starting *
*******************

Creating Snapshot of VM-1
Creating Clone of VM-1
VM-1-BkpClone-20130611 Created
Removing Snapshot from VM-1


*******************
* Backup Finished *
*******************

PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I]Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*bkp*"} | Get-HardDisk | fl[/I][/B]


StorageFormat   : [color=red][B]Thin[/B][/color]
Persistence     : Persistent
DiskType        : Flat
Filename        : [iSCSI] VM-1-BkpClone-20130611/VM-1-BkpClone-20130611.vmdk
CapacityKB      : 1048576
CapacityGB      : 1
ParentId        : VirtualMachine-vm-642
Parent          : VM-1-BkpClone-20130611
Uid             : /VIServer=administrator@localhost:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-642/HardDisk=2000/
ConnectionState :
ExtensionData   : VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk
Id              : VirtualMachine-vm-642/2000
Name            : Hard disk 1

PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I]Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*bkp*"} | Get-HardDisk | Set-HardDisk -Inflate -Confirm:$False[/I][/B]

CapacityGB      Persistence                                                    Filename
----------      -----------                                                    --------
1.000           Persistent           ...1-BkpClone-20130611/VM-1-BkpClone-20130611.vmdk


PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I]Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*bkp*"} | Get-HardDisk | fl[/I][/B]


StorageFormat   : [color=red][B]Thin[/B][/color]
Persistence     : Persistent
DiskType        : Flat
Filename        : [iSCSI] VM-1-BkpClone-20130611/VM-1-BkpClone-20130611.vmdk
CapacityKB      : 1048576
CapacityGB      : 1
ParentId        : VirtualMachine-vm-642
Parent          : VM-1-BkpClone-20130611
Uid             : /VIServer=administrator@localhost:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-642/HardDisk=2000/
ConnectionState :
ExtensionData   : VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk
Id              : VirtualMachine-vm-642/2000
Name            : Hard disk 1


PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I](Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine) |?{$_.name -like "*bkp*"} |%{$_.reload()}[/I][/B]

PowerCLI C:\Scripts> [B][I]Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*bkp*"} | Get-HardDisk | fl[/I][/B]


StorageFormat   : [color=red][B]EagerZeroedThick[/B][/color]
Persistence     : Persistent
DiskType        : Flat
Filename        : [iSCSI] VM-1-BkpClone-20130611/VM-1-BkpClone-20130611.vmdk
CapacityKB      : 1048576
CapacityGB      : 1
ParentId        : VirtualMachine-vm-642
Parent          : VM-1-BkpClone-20130611
Uid             : /VIServer=administrator@localhost:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-642/HardDisk=2000/
ConnectionState :
ExtensionData   : VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk
Id              : VirtualMachine-vm-642/2000
Name            : Hard disk 1

Above is more for my own benefit / reference, but in case someone else is looking for similar issues - here is how

Inflated disk still shows "Thin"

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