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ESXi 4.1 extend datastore

Hi
We have a HP ML350 G6 with a P410i RAID controller with 512MB battery cache with 7 disk of 146GB attached configured in RAID5 which gives us a total of +/- 819GB usable space.

Because we were running out of space i added another disk of 146GB to the server and extended the RAID5. I took a while to complete the extend which resulted in very slow performance.

Before the extend i had a datastore of 819GB with +/- 5GB of free space. After the extend i have a datastore of 820GB with +/- 1GB free space.

How in the hell can this be?

Plz help!!

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

Although you have expanded the Array, did you also Expand the Logicxal Drive using the Array Configuration Utilities.

Once, you complete both, you also need to Increase the Datastore VMFS Partition in ESX using the Increase Option.

Select the datastore, and click properties, and Select Increase, and select the remaining space.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

It's also normal for RAID expansion to take a long time, and reduce performance whilst it's occuring.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

A word of warning here, it you have installed ESXi 4.1 onto the existing RAID 5 Array, e.g. both ESXi 4.1 OS and VMFS partition share the same RAID 5 Array, you MAY NOT be able to expand the VMFS partition, which is due to a 4 Primary Partition Limit on a disk (this is not a VMware limitation).

FlipTrip

ASKER

damn, that's probably it then. I expanded the raid but not the logical drive. I'll check this as soon as possible.

I let you know.

thx for the quick reply.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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FlipTrip

ASKER

thx for the quick respond and clear answer.