Applies to: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2
Error:
Snapshots fail to merge with error
Cause:
Low disk space.
Resolution:
Create additional free disk space to allow the merge to complete, or move the .VHD and .AVHD file to a volume with sufficient disk space, and then manually merge the snapshots.
Note: Snapshots based on fixed .vhd files hold the free space that has been pre-provisioned inside the fixed vhd. Snapshots are dynamically expanding by nature and running a fixed-vhd VM on a snapshot for a long time means you lose the performance benefits of fixed vhd files. You should commit the data in the snapshot as soon as possible after it has served its purpose.
RESOURCES:
This article is available in other languages, including Italian.
TNJMAN edited Revision 18. Comment: Dangling things were rectified (as soon as possible after it has served its purpose)
Carsten Siemens edited Revision 17. Comment: Added tag: has comment
Richard Mueller edited Revision 16. Comment: Removed (en-US) from title
tonysoper_MSFT edited Revision 12. Comment: + Ben Blog
Horizon_Net edited Revision 11. Comment: added language tags
Ed Price - MSFT edited Revision 7. Comment: TOC and header formatting
FZB edited Revision 6. Comment: spaces
Eric Battalio MSFT edited Revision 5. Comment: removed extraneous space
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 4. Comment: Fixed link.
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 3. Comment: Cleaned up formatting and added See Also link.
Eric Battalio MSFT edited Revision 2. Comment: eric made a silly change
indeed.
GREAT ARTICLE!!
Nice article !!!
Definitely! Space issues must be rectified where any facet of the plaform is dynamically-expanding. Should you clarify this further: "commit the data in the snapshot as soon as possible after it has served its purpose." i.e., is it correct to append something like. "Committing the data releases the storage that was being consumed by the snapshot" ? [FYI, in the "olden days" of VMWare, for example, we used to have to manually "clean up" snapshot data, depending on several settings and factors]