6.0

Failure of disk consolidation can reduce the performance of virtual machines. You can check whether any
virtual machines require separate consolidation operations by viewing a list. For information about locating
and viewing the consolidation state of multiple virtual machines and running a separate consolidation
operation, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.
Delete
Use the Delete option to remove a single parent or child snapshot from the
snapshot tree. Delete writes disk changes that occur between the state of the
snapshot and the previous disk state to the parent snapshot.
You can also use the Delete option to remove a corrupt snapshot and its les
from an abandoned branch of the snapshot tree without merging them with
the parent snapshot.
Delete All
Use the Delete All option to delete all snapshots from the Snapshot Manager.
Delete all consolidates and writes the changes that occur between snapshots
and the previous delta disk states to the base parent disk and merges them
with the base virtual machine disk.
To prevent snapshot les from merging with the parent snapshot if, for example, an update or installation
fails, rst use the Restore command to restore to a previous snapshot. This action invalidates the snapshot
delta disks and deletes the memory le. You can then use the Delete option to remove the snapshot and any
associated les.
Delete a Snapshot in the VMware Host Client
You can use the Snapshot Manager to delete a single snapshot or all snapshots in a tree.
Be careful not to accidentally delete a snapshot that you need. You cannot restore a deleted snapshot. For
example, you might want to install several browsers, a, b, and c, and capture the virtual machine state after
you install each browser. The rst, or base snapshot, captures the virtual machine with browser a and the
second snapshot captures browser b. If you restore the base snapshot that includes browser a and take a
third snapshot to capture browser c and delete the snapshot that contains browser b, you cannot return to
the virtual machine state that includes browser b.
Procedure
1 Click Virtual Machines in the VMware Host Client inventory.
2 Right-click the virtual machine in the list, select Snapshots from the pop-up menu and click Manage
Snapshots.
3 Click the snapshot that you want to delete and click Delete.
4 Click Remove.
5 Click Close to navigate out of the Snapshot Manager.
Managing Snapshots with the VMware Host Client
You can review all snapshots for your virtual machines and use the Snapshot Manager to manage the
snapshots.
After you take a snapshot, you can right-click a virtual machine and click Revert to snapshot to restore the
virtual machine to the state of the snapshot at any time.
If you have a series of snapshots, you can use the Snapshot Manager to restore any parent or child snapshot.
Subsequent child snapshots that you take from the restored snapshot create a branch in the snapshot tree.
Use the Snapshot Manager to delete a snapshot from the tree.
Chapter 3 Virtual Machine Management with the VMware Host Client
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