6.5.1

Table Of Contents
If the virtual machine is powered off or VMware Tools is not available, the
Quiesce parameter is not available. You cannot quiesce virtual machines
that have large capacity disks.
Important Do not use snapshots as your only backup solution or as a long-term backup solution.
Change Disk Mode to Exclude Virtual Disks from Snapshots
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 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Hard disk, and 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.
3 Click OK.
Taking a Snapshot
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.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
VMware, Inc. 224