We help IT Professionals succeed at work.

VMWare Hard Disk Query

cloughs
cloughs asked
on
Hello,

I have a VMWare VSphere Enterprise 4 setup at the moment all working fine.  On this platform I have a virtual machine that is a file server.  This virtual machine has two hard disks added to it, one 1.09tb and the other 1.99tb.  So if I go to edit settings on the VM and highlight Hard Disk 1 it shows me a Disk File path of: [SAN_Vol05]File/File.vmdk.  If I highlight Hard Disk 2 it shows me a Disk File path of: [SAN_Vol05]File/File_1.vmdk.  

My problem is that these have been thin provisioned on the same SAN_Vol totalling just under 3TB of required space on the SAN.  Each of the SAN_Vol's on the SAN are a max size of 2TB.  So sooner or later we will get to the stage where we will run out of space on the SAN_Vol as we have thin provisioned more space than we have available in any one SAN_Vol.  Although we have the space across multiple SAN_Vols so the hardware isnt the issue.  

I was expecting to be able to stop the File server VM, edit the disk file path and move hard disk 1 and hard disk 2 vmdk files to separate SAN_Vols each 2TB.  However to my surprise I cant see how to edit this path as it is still greyed out.

Anyone have any ideas how we can get round this issue without disturbing our live server too much?

Is there a way to amend how much has been thin provisioned as the file server has a large chunk of free space available to it still?

Thanks
Comment
Watch Question

View Solution Only

VMware and Virtualization Consultant
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Fellow
Expert of the Year 2017
Commented:
You cannot edit the "grey out path".

You would need to Remove the Disk from the Virtual Machine, be very careful you do not select delete from disk.

Move the virtual disk to the new datastore.

Click Add New Disk, Use Exuisting disk, browse to datastore and select the disk again.

(unless you have storage vMotion).
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Fellow
Expert of the Year 2017

Commented:
As for, how to do it with distrubing the Live Server too much, I'm afraid I think you will need to schedule some downtime.

Can you not increase the Size of the datastore on the LUN?

e.g. Grow the LUN, and then Extend the Datastore (in vSphere)?

There would be no downtime with the above, and no virtual disk move required.
cloughs

Author

Commented:
Hi
I have storage vmotion i think as we have an enterprise license and I can go to my datastores page and live migrate VM datastores between SANVols if that helps?
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Fellow
Expert of the Year 2017

Commented:
You should be able to move the virtual disk to a new datastore with no downtime using Migrate (Storage vMotion).
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Fellow
Expert of the Year 2017

Commented:
You cannot change the size of the disk, or thin provision size, unless you were to use VMware Converter, to create a new virtual machine, and then in the options change the size of the disks.
cloughs

Author

Commented:
I can move the VM datastore as a pair to different data stores via vcentre, right click the machine, migrate, datastore, choose new SANVol and away you go.  But it doent let me separate the two hard disks out it moves all disks associated with the Vm from what I can see unless im missing something obvious?
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Fellow
Expert of the Year 2017

Commented:
Yes, that would be correct.

If you want to keep on seperate datastores, you would have to complete manually, as per above suggestion.
cloughs

Author

Commented:
Okay thanks very much for your help