We have some Linux VMs that have 16 GB of memory. Taking a snapshot not only takes a considerable amount of time, but also severly impacts the load on the VM (but not on the ESX hosts). Excluding the memory in a snapshot does not have the same problems.
What would be the risk of taking snapshots of the running VM without the memory, if we were to ensure that any time a VM were reverted to a snapshot it was powered off?
Would it be OK to delete the snapshot (taken without memory) without powering off the VM?
We are running ESXi & virtual center version 4.1.0.
Thank you
David Summers