Brett Carr wrote:
Did you find a way to do this, we have the same issue (Different Array) and need to automate this, I'd (much) rather do it using powercli if i can.
I suggest you contact your storage vendor first.. most if not all have affiliation with VMWare and it's clearly documented on how to free up space.
The reclamation is tied to files within a data store itself, if that datastore isn't setup right (with permissions to delete files for instance) then the data isn't removed, so the datastore still shows it as used, which is true.
The problem therefore is with either your permissions or the way it was configured to work with your ESX host. If you MOVE a file, don't care if it's zeroed or white space or not.. a move is a move, that file is marked for delete, which in turn tells the file system to reuse it...
I have seen many issues with EMC, Clarion, Netapp, and Compellent, but reclaiming of space means there is a problem with ESX and the storage configuration the storage will reclaim space that is UNUSED.. don't care how old or what vendor, that will work 100% if that storage device is certified for VMware...
Something else is the cause.
Also I have done many disk store cleanup, within a storage array and datastore, never touch vmkfstools... no need to do command line, there are many other ways to handle it.