# Orphaned VMDKs Orphaned VMDKs lists virtual disk files that are not attached to any active VM. They occupy datastore capacity, they appear in nobody's inventory, and they accumulate quietly after every decommission and migration. This is usually the cheapest reclaimable capacity in a virtual estate. ## What this screen shows A table of unattached VMDK files with vCenter, datastore, VM name where one is still associated, the VMDK identifier, VMDK size, an acknowledgment control, and ticket integration fields. ## When to use it - **Reclaiming capacity.** Storage waste with no workload attached to defend it, which makes it the least political capacity you will ever recover. - **Reducing risk after change.** Stale artifacts left behind by decommissions and migrations are a housekeeping and audit problem as much as a capacity one. ## How to work it - **Sort by VMDK size.** A handful of large disks usually accounts for most of the reclaimable capacity, so the top of the list is where the return is. - **Export for validation.** Take the list to the people who own the workloads before anything gets deleted. > **Important:** Validate against change records and retention policy before deleting anything. Some unattached VMDKs are deliberate: rollback copies held open during a migration, or disks retained under a policy nobody documented on the file itself. Orphaned means unattached, not unwanted. ## Turning it into a number Total VMDK size across the list is reclaimable capacity. To convert it to money, take the cost per GiB per day for the underlying array from the financial ledger and multiply. That gives the annual figure worth quoting when you ask for a maintenance window to do the cleanup. ## Related screens [All Units: Datastores](https://visualoneintelligence.com/docs/virtual-all-units-datastores/) shows which datastores the reclaim would relieve. [Savings Report](https://visualoneintelligence.com/docs/finops-savings-report/) carries orphaned VMDK cost as a quantified compute savings line. [Financial Administration](https://visualoneintelligence.com/docs/finops-financial-administration/) supplies the per-GiB rate for the conversion above. --- Source: https://visualoneintelligence.com/docs/virtual-orphaned-vmdks/