crawfordit
asked on
VMware Max Drive Limit
I have a host server that has over 400 gigs of drive space. I am running ESXi 4.1.
When I config a guest os it will only let me use 256gigs of the data store. I can not add more during this process.
Will the guest os dynamically grow. As consumption of drive space is used up. If I could I would love to use as much drive space and possible.
So what I would love to happen is as more space is used will the software allocate more date store space to the guest OS.
If this is not the case what would be a good solution because 256 gigs is not going to cut it.
When I config a guest os it will only let me use 256gigs of the data store. I can not add more during this process.
Will the guest os dynamically grow. As consumption of drive space is used up. If I could I would love to use as much drive space and possible.
So what I would love to happen is as more space is used will the software allocate more date store space to the guest OS.
If this is not the case what would be a good solution because 256 gigs is not going to cut it.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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So, to answer your final question in detail:
1. Backup/remove data/VMs off this particular datastore
2. Remove the datastore (rt-click on it and select Remove/Delete)
3. Go to Config tab -> Storage - Add Storage link to re-add the datastore
4. During the end of the wizard, make sure you change the block size to 4MB (since this is only a 400GB DS, making a larger block size is irrelevant)
6. Add VMs to Inventory if needed (see below)
7. You can then create a VMDK larger than 256GB & assign it to your VM.
NOTE: If you had VMs on this DS and copied them off; you can copy them back. Once done copying back, rt-click on the DS -> Browse DS, then go into each VM folder, rt-click on the .vmx file and select 'Add to Inventory' to have your VMs re-show back up in the left inventory pane/tree of your vSphere Client under your Host or Cluster or Datacenter.
~coolsport00
1. Backup/remove data/VMs off this particular datastore
2. Remove the datastore (rt-click on it and select Remove/Delete)
3. Go to Config tab -> Storage - Add Storage link to re-add the datastore
4. During the end of the wizard, make sure you change the block size to 4MB (since this is only a 400GB DS, making a larger block size is irrelevant)
6. Add VMs to Inventory if needed (see below)
7. You can then create a VMDK larger than 256GB & assign it to your VM.
NOTE: If you had VMs on this DS and copied them off; you can copy them back. Once done copying back, rt-click on the DS -> Browse DS, then go into each VM folder, rt-click on the .vmx file and select 'Add to Inventory' to have your VMs re-show back up in the left inventory pane/tree of your vSphere Client under your Host or Cluster or Datacenter.
~coolsport00
SOLUTION
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~coolsport00