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Snapshots and a Virtual Machine's Hard Disks
When a snapshot exists and the virtual machine saves data to disk, that data is written to a set of redo-log files. These files have .REDO as part of the filename and are stored in the virtual machine's working directory.
Redo-log files can grow quite large as newly saved data continues to accumulate in them until you take an action that affects the snapshot. Be aware of how much disk space these logs consume.
Remove the snapshot — When you remove the snapshot, the changes accumulated in the redo-log files are written permanently to the base disks (either the virtual disk files or the physical disks, depending on your virtual machine's hard disk configuration). This is similar to committing changes to a disk in GSX Server 2.
Revert to the snapshot — When you revert to the snapshot, the contents of the redo-log files are discarded. Any additional changes are, once again, accumulated in the redo-log files. This is similar to discarding changes to a disk in GSX Server 2.
Take a snapshot — If you take a snapshot when the virtual machine already has a snapshot, changes stored in the redo-log files are written permanently to the base disk. Then any subsequent changes are, once again, accumulated in the redo-log files. Depending upon how large the redo-log file is, taking a new snapshot can take some time.