Adma1
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Expanding physical storage space on virtual server
Hi All,
Just after a little advice on this one,
We currently have a HP ProLiant DL360 G6 1U Rack Mount Server which is running VMWare ESXi 4.0.0 (running 3 virtual servers). Currently there are 4 80GB drives (which form a raid 5) on board and we have come to the point were we are running out of storage space and need to increase the of HD's. I am wanting to know what would be the best way of going about expanding the physical hard drive storage on the server. We are wanting to use 250GB HD’s. Now this is the part I am a little confused with; Is this a process of inserting a new drive and allowing the raid to copy contents onto the new drive or will we need to copy the virtual machine files out of the VM ESXi onto the new drives?
The later option I am trying to avoid as I have little to no experience in doing this.
Any suggestions, advice are greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks,
Adrian
Just after a little advice on this one,
We currently have a HP ProLiant DL360 G6 1U Rack Mount Server which is running VMWare ESXi 4.0.0 (running 3 virtual servers). Currently there are 4 80GB drives (which form a raid 5) on board and we have come to the point were we are running out of storage space and need to increase the of HD's. I am wanting to know what would be the best way of going about expanding the physical hard drive storage on the server. We are wanting to use 250GB HD’s. Now this is the part I am a little confused with; Is this a process of inserting a new drive and allowing the raid to copy contents onto the new drive or will we need to copy the virtual machine files out of the VM ESXi onto the new drives?
The later option I am trying to avoid as I have little to no experience in doing this.
Any suggestions, advice are greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks,
Adrian
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ASKER
OK,
We do back up the vm's as such but what we do is schedule a nightly backup within Windows on each server to perform a backup of all volumes including the bare metal recovery.
We do back up the vm's as such but what we do is schedule a nightly backup within Windows on each server to perform a backup of all volumes including the bare metal recovery.
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ASKER
Should we be backing up the VM's as well?
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Hi Hanccocka,
Thanks for your response, stupid question here but how do you tell if you have the free or licensed version of ESXi?
Also the 2nd stupid question is; in the attached screen shot there are 2 datastores listed - Datastore 1 and Datastore 2. Now are these the 2 data stores that I need to copy out of VM ware? if so we have a spare Identical HP Pro liant server and was proposing to put the new blank drives into the spare unit and then use the ACU to build the raid then once the raid is set up I can copy over the VM's. Does that sound like it could work?
Sorry bout the questions, I just have limited experience with this sort of stuff and your help is greatly appreciated.
many thanks,
Adrian
VMWareVsphere.png
Thanks for your response, stupid question here but how do you tell if you have the free or licensed version of ESXi?
Also the 2nd stupid question is; in the attached screen shot there are 2 datastores listed - Datastore 1 and Datastore 2. Now are these the 2 data stores that I need to copy out of VM ware? if so we have a spare Identical HP Pro liant server and was proposing to put the new blank drives into the spare unit and then use the ACU to build the raid then once the raid is set up I can copy over the VM's. Does that sound like it could work?
Sorry bout the questions, I just have limited experience with this sort of stuff and your help is greatly appreciated.
many thanks,
Adrian
VMWareVsphere.png
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Hi Hanccoka,
Thanks for your assistance with the current post to date, much appreciated.
Just an update on this as I managed to get a hold of the of the people who originally set up the servers here and spoke briefly to them about the upgrade and there suggestions about how I should tackle this project was the following:
First Upgrade VMware Esxi to Version 5
Then copy the vmdk files off
Take all old disks out
Put in new disks –
Install vmware 5
Recreate the virtual servers, then attached vmdks to the correct server
Would highly recommended making sure the backups have been working successfully.
If you the migration process to new the disks isn’t working, and you take the new disks out and put all the old ones back in,
My only concern with the above is that there is a possibility that the old disks wont boot.
Your thoughts?
Many thanks,
Thanks for your assistance with the current post to date, much appreciated.
Just an update on this as I managed to get a hold of the of the people who originally set up the servers here and spoke briefly to them about the upgrade and there suggestions about how I should tackle this project was the following:
First Upgrade VMware Esxi to Version 5
Then copy the vmdk files off
Take all old disks out
Put in new disks –
Install vmware 5
Recreate the virtual servers, then attached vmdks to the correct server
Would highly recommended making sure the backups have been working successfully.
If you the migration process to new the disks isn’t working, and you take the new disks out and put all the old ones back in,
My only concern with the above is that there is a possibility that the old disks wont boot.
Your thoughts?
Many thanks,
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ASKER
Thanks for the response,
We do have an identical spare server which we have sitting here as a cold spare. We could use this one as the new server and backup the vmdks from existing server and replace onto this one. That way the existing server remains in tact and we can always revert back to this in case it doesn't work out? as we are avoiding the need to erase the server and will only need to perform steps 3 onwards from your list above, correct?
Adrian
We do have an identical spare server which we have sitting here as a cold spare. We could use this one as the new server and backup the vmdks from existing server and replace onto this one. That way the existing server remains in tact and we can always revert back to this in case it doesn't work out? as we are avoiding the need to erase the server and will only need to perform steps 3 onwards from your list above, correct?
Adrian
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ASKER
Thanks Hanccocka,
I will your suggestion RE: Veema a go and let you know how I get on.
Adrian,
I will your suggestion RE: Veema a go and let you know how I get on.
Adrian,
ASKER
Hi Hanccocka,
Sorry for all the dumb questions, just trying to make sure I am 100% before I try anything. I have read through your article, (very nicely present, good job) and just wanting to know do we only need to install one instance of Veeam on any 'one' of the 3 virtual servers we have? as the migration (from what I can tell) occurs from within the Vshpere, and all 3 servers will then be migrated accordinly?.
Thanks again.
Sorry for all the dumb questions, just trying to make sure I am 100% before I try anything. I have read through your article, (very nicely present, good job) and just wanting to know do we only need to install one instance of Veeam on any 'one' of the 3 virtual servers we have? as the migration (from what I can tell) occurs from within the Vshpere, and all 3 servers will then be migrated accordinly?.
Thanks again.
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Hi Hanccocka,
I am just in the process of configuring Veeam ready for the live migration this wekend however I have run into an issue whilst attempting to "Add a server" into Veeam. Screen shot of error attached.
The error occurs when attempting to add a new server and then selecting VM ware VSphere.
I managed to get into contact with our local Veeam represntative and he mentioned the following.
"Suggest to him to turn off the firewall on the backup server and see if it’s a port issue. I tried this to no avail.
Also ask him is the 192.168.0.15 a Virtual Centre or an ESX host that he’s logging on to. Also what happens if he tries to log on to the VC servers using a browser .. ( that uses port 443 )
So
https://192.168.0.15" I receive a 403 access denied error.
Any suggestions and tips you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again
Adrian
Veeam---New-VMWare-server.jpg
I am just in the process of configuring Veeam ready for the live migration this wekend however I have run into an issue whilst attempting to "Add a server" into Veeam. Screen shot of error attached.
The error occurs when attempting to add a new server and then selecting VM ware VSphere.
I managed to get into contact with our local Veeam represntative and he mentioned the following.
"Suggest to him to turn off the firewall on the backup server and see if it’s a port issue. I tried this to no avail.
Also ask him is the 192.168.0.15 a Virtual Centre or an ESX host that he’s logging on to. Also what happens if he tries to log on to the VC servers using a browser .. ( that uses port 443 )
So
https://192.168.0.15" I receive a 403 access denied error.
Any suggestions and tips you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again
Adrian
Veeam---New-VMWare-server.jpg
ASKER
Thanks for the responses thus far.
The hard drives we have are hot swap able, so to clarify If I insert a blank 250GB (we are wanting to replace all 4 drives) will the Smart Array begin to copy or will I need to set this with the ACU? all current servers/ services will run as per normal whilr the array is copying the contents correct?
Also Hanccocka, Just referring to your comment:
"NOW, you may want to re-think about the above, because it's often better to Backup VMs, Destroy the datastore, recreate your RAID 5 datatore using 250GB disks, and restore the VMs! Benefit it's quicker, and allows you to use the full 250GB disks, if you have 3!"
If I was to decide to go with the above then will that mean that I will mean that I will need 240GB of storage in order to backup the VMs correct 3 drives @ 80GB currently at almost capacity each.
Many Thanks,
Adrian