The flat file watches, unable to change, as the guest OS installs updates, deletes logs, creates users. It is a museum diorama of a past state. If the snapshot chain is never committed, the flat file will drift into obsolescence — a perfect copy of an irrelevant moment.
But what of the original’s deleted files? They are cloned too. The clone inherits the original’s ghosts: half a deleted email, a temporary VPN config, the residue of a forgotten cryptocurrency wallet. vmdk flat file
When the snapshot is finally deleted, the hypervisor’s vmfs reaps the flat file. Its blocks are freed, overwritten by new VMDKs. But for a brief time after deletion, the raw sectors on the SSD still hold the MBR, the superblocks, the half-deleted spreadsheets. The flat file watches, unable to change, as
: The underlying RAID’s URE (unrecoverable read error) strikes. The guest reads sector 5,000,000. The hypervisor returns -1 . The VM bluescreens. The flat file now has a scar — a hole where data used to be. But what of the original’s deleted files