Backup and recover physical and cloud-based servers and workstations, as well as endpoint devices that belong to remote users. Avoid downtime and data loss quickly and easily for Windows-based physical or public cloud-based workloads!
Course Of The Month
4 days, 23 hours left to enrollBecome a Premium Member and unlock a new, free course in leading technologies each month.
Solved
Add Storage to VM
Posted on 2013-05-14
I have inherited a some vwmare 3.5 servers with a Fibre SAN carved into several datastores. I want to ultimately add space to one of my windows 2003 server's drives. When I look at the datastore inventory it shows almost 20GB of free space. When I edit the settings of the VM it does not show that I can increase the size of the virtual disk. ie - disk size and maximum size are the same.
Other machines with different datastores show free space and the availability of that space to the virtual disks.
Other machines with different datastores show free space and the availability of that space to the virtual disks.
[X]
Welcome to Experts Exchange
Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.
- Help others & share knowledge
- Earn cash & points
- Learn & ask questions
3-
2
6 Comments
Active today
20GB of free space on the datastore, does NOT give you much to add to a virtual disk.
Check if the VM has any Snapshots?
see my EE Articles
HOW TO: VMware Snapshots :- Be Patient
Is the virtual disk IDE? IDE disks do not support disk expansion, and you would need to use VMware Converter, to complete a V2V.
HOW TO: Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
HOW TO: P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
HOW TO: P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0
HOW TO: Improve the transfer rate of a Physical to Virtual (P2V), Virtual to Virtual Conversion (V2V) using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0
HOW TO: Resize a VMware (VMDK) Virtual Disk
Check if the VM has any Snapshots?
see my EE Articles
HOW TO: VMware Snapshots :- Be Patient
Is the virtual disk IDE? IDE disks do not support disk expansion, and you would need to use VMware Converter, to complete a V2V.
HOW TO: Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
HOW TO: P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
HOW TO: P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0
HOW TO: Improve the transfer rate of a Physical to Virtual (P2V), Virtual to Virtual Conversion (V2V) using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0
HOW TO: Resize a VMware (VMDK) Virtual Disk
Hi,
ESX 3.5 does not allow online expanding of disk spaces when the Guest is running. Also it does not allow the expansion of volume when there are any snapshots associated with the VM.
So make sure that you remove all snapshots and make sure your VM is shut down before trying to increase the virtual disk size.
Cheers,
K.
ESX 3.5 does not allow online expanding of disk spaces when the Guest is running. Also it does not allow the expansion of volume when there are any snapshots associated with the VM.
So make sure that you remove all snapshots and make sure your VM is shut down before trying to increase the virtual disk size.
Cheers,
K.
I don't want to add a disk, I just want to expand the one I have. I am battling with free space, and this is a temporary fix until I can get some new servers.
The disks are SCSI and part of Fiber array.
I have attached a PDF with some screenshots.
DiskVMWARE.pdf
The disks are SCSI and part of Fiber array.
I have attached a PDF with some screenshots.
DiskVMWARE.pdf
Active today
firstly, you only have 20GB free on your datastore.
you are in danger, if you add storage to your virtual machine (vmdk file) for the OS, if the free space on the datastore reaches Zero, you will not be able to start up your VMs, because VMs also use a swap file equal to memory, when they are started, so be warned!
In your example, the Maximum Disk Size is based on the Block Size of the Datastore.
if the Block Size is 1MB which it is, the macx size of disk is 256GB.
see here
• 1MB block size – 256GB maximum file size
• 2MB block size – 512GB maximum file size
• 4MB block size – 1024GB maximum file size
• 8MB block size – 2048GB maximum file size
You will need to MOVE the Virtual Machine to a Datastore, which has a Block Size of at least 2MB.
To create a 2MB Block Size requires the datastore to be "formated/created", e.g. needs to be set on creation.
A workaround, as it's a temp fix....
Add & Create a new virtual disk on this datastore of size 20GB to this VM.
and then update the current required OS disk to Dynamic that you need to expand, and then Expand the disk in the OS, using this new 20GB disk. (Span disks!)
this will give you a 276GB disk spanned over two virtual disks.
you are in danger, if you add storage to your virtual machine (vmdk file) for the OS, if the free space on the datastore reaches Zero, you will not be able to start up your VMs, because VMs also use a swap file equal to memory, when they are started, so be warned!
In your example, the Maximum Disk Size is based on the Block Size of the Datastore.
if the Block Size is 1MB which it is, the macx size of disk is 256GB.
see here
• 1MB block size – 256GB maximum file size
• 2MB block size – 512GB maximum file size
• 4MB block size – 1024GB maximum file size
• 8MB block size – 2048GB maximum file size
You will need to MOVE the Virtual Machine to a Datastore, which has a Block Size of at least 2MB.
To create a 2MB Block Size requires the datastore to be "formated/created", e.g. needs to be set on creation.
A workaround, as it's a temp fix....
Add & Create a new virtual disk on this datastore of size 20GB to this VM.
and then update the current required OS disk to Dynamic that you need to expand, and then Expand the disk in the OS, using this new 20GB disk. (Span disks!)
this will give you a 276GB disk spanned over two virtual disks.
Featured Post
Everything you need to know about backup and disaster recovery with AWS, for FREE!
Question has a verified solution.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question
In this article, I will show you HOW TO: Install VMware Tools for Windows on a VMware Windows virtual machine on a VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.5 (ESXi 6.5) Host Server, using the VMware Host Client. The virtual machine has Windows Server 2016 instal…
This article provides a convenient collection of links to Microsoft provided Security Patches for operating systems that have reached their End of Life support cycle. Included operating systems covered by this article are Windows XP, Windows Server…
- Ransomware
- Experts Exchange
- Windows XP
- Windows OS
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2003, Security
Advanced tutorial on how to run the esxtop command to capture a batch file in csv format in order to export the file and use it for performance analysis. He demonstrates how to download the file using a vSphere web client (or vSphere client) and exp…
This video shows you how to use a vSphere client to connect to your ESX host as the root user.
Demonstrates the basic connection of bypassing certification set up.
Demonstrates how to access the traditional view to begin managing your virtual mac…
Suggested Courses
Course of the Month4 days, 23 hours left to enroll
688 members asked questions and received personalized solutions in the past 7 days.
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.