Question

VMWare ESXi 4: Easiest way to configure existing template with eager-zeroed thick disks?

Asked by: bsohn417

What's the easiest way to configure an existing VMWare template with eager-zeroed thick disks on ESXi 4?  When I try to deploy a virtual machine from the existing template, I have the option use thick format, but that's lazy-zeroed thick.  

I was thinking of doing the following:

1) Convert the template to a virtual machine and then turn on fault tolerance (which would convert the virtual disk to eager zeroed),

2) Turn off fault tolerance.  If fault tolerance was turned off, would the virtual disk remain eager-zeroed thick?

Thanks for any help.  

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Asked On
2009-11-03 at 16:02:49ID24869397
Topics

VMware

,

Virtualization

,

Hypervisor

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: ryder0707Posted on 2009-11-03 at 16:53:57ID: 25735502

Not sure about turning off FT the disk remain as eager-zeroed(i think it will otherwise it will be converted again) but in order to create FT  you need to have cluster and you cant do it on a standalone esx host
This can easily be done by cloning the disk using vmktstools with eager-zeroed option, you dont need cluster to achive this just plain single esx host will do
Cheers!

 

by: bsohn417Posted on 2009-11-10 at 08:55:47ID: 25787289

Am I able to convert an existing disk to eager-zeroed thick using vmkfstools?  If so, what is the exact command?  Thanks.  

 

by: ryder0707Posted on 2009-11-10 at 15:30:15ID: 25791103

You can convert existing thick vmdk to eagerzeroedthick with the following command
vmkfstools -k myVM.vmdk

But take note, you cant just convert existing thin to eager-zeroed thick (especially in vSphere we like to use thin)
this will not work as it can only convert preallocated vmdk
to overcome this problem you need to clone it and specify the desired disk format

vmkfstools -i myVM.vmdk newdisk.vmdk -d eagerzeroedthick

once done
mv myVM.vmdk old.vmdk (backup old vmdk)
mv newdisk.vmdk myVM.vmdk (attach to VM)

test your vm, if it works fine then delete old.vmdk & myVM-flat.vmdk
take note, your renamed myVM.vmdk will be using newdisk-flat.vmdk
as vmdk file is just the disk descriptor file, it will point to specific flat file
you can fix this by editing the vmx file if you want

I recommend to always to use -i not -k as corruption may occur(nothing is perfect) and at least you have backup

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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