6.0

Change Disk Mode to Exclude Virtual Disks from Snapshots in the vSphere Client
You can set a virtual disk to independent mode to exclude the disk from any snapshots taken of its virtual
machine.
Prerequisites
Power off the virtual machine and delete any existing snapshots before you change the disk mode. Deleting
a snapshot involves committing the existing data on the snapshot disk to the parent disk.
Required privileges:
n
Virtual machine.Snapshot management.Remove Snapshot
n
Virtual machine.Configuration.Modify device settings
Procedure
1 In the vSphere Client inventory, right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
2 Click the Hardware tab and select the hard disk to exclude.
3 Under Mode, select Independent.
Snapshots do not affect the state of an independent disk.
NOTE Any disk, regardless of its type, that is created after you take a snapshot does not appear if you
revert to that snapshot.
4 Select an independent disk mode option.
Option Description
Independent - Persistent
Disks in persistent mode behave like conventional disks on your physical
computer. All data written to a disk in persistent mode are written
permanently to the disk.
Independent - Nonpersistent
Changes to disks in nonpersistent mode are discarded when you power off
or reset the virtual machine. With nonpersistent mode, you can restart the
virtual machine with a virtual disk in the same state every time. Changes
to the disk are written to and read from a redo log file that is deleted when
you power off or reset.
5 Click OK.
Take a Snapshot in the vSphere Client
Snapshots capture the entire state of the virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot. You can take a
snapshot when a virtual machine is powered on, powered off, or suspended. If you are suspending a virtual
machine, wait until the suspend operation finishes before you take a snapshot.
When you create a memory snapshot, the snapshot captures the state of the virtual machine's memory and
the virtual machine power settings. When you capture the virtual machine's memory state, the snapshot
operation takes longer to complete. You might also see a momentary lapse in response over the network.
When you quiesce a virtual machine, VMware Tools quiesces the file system in the virtual machine. The
quiesce operation pauses or alters the state of running processes on the virtual machine, especially processes
that might modify information stored on the disk during a restore operation.
NOTE You cannot revert to a snapshot with dynamic disks, so quiesced snapshots are not used when you
restore dynamic disks. Snapshot technology has no visibility into Dynamic Disks. Dynamic Disks are
commonly known as Microsoft specific file systems.
vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client
190 VMware, Inc.