The most important point related to disk consolidation is that virtual machine power state cannot be changed during consolidation. Disk consolidation is very important but slow process.

We should delete snapshots before increasing VM disk space by increasing size of virtual RDM.Īt least till vSphere 6.5 deleting snapshots does not automatically improves performance as the snapshot deltas are left as it is until disk consolidation is performed.

If snapshots are used for backup process, then after backup is complete the snapshot should be deleted.

As soon as activity is over and VM is stable, snapshots should be deleted

It is not ideal to keep snapshot for more than 2-3 days.We should not use more than 2 or 3 snapshots in a chain.There should be separate backup mechanism for backup. We should not use snapshots as backups.

However, there are best practices for using snapshots such as: Snapshots are good way of creating a quick recovery point in case the changes to be performed in immediate future cause VM to crash. Home > VMWare platform > VMWare vSphere or ESXi > Best practices for using snapshots in vsphere environment