asked on

Moving & Renaming large Disk attached to new VM from the old VM ?

People,

I'm planning to migrate the file server from the below old Win2008R2 VM into 2012 R2 VM:

Old File Server VM - PRODFS01-VM:
Windows Server 2008 R2
C:\ - 40 GB
D:\ - 1.89 TB (VMFS - [NAS-D01] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)
E:\ - 765 GB (VMFS - [NAS-D05F] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)

New File Server VM - PRODFS05-VM:
Windows Server 2012 R2
C:\ - 40 GB
D:\ - 1.89 TB (Will be attached from [NAS-D01] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)
E:\ - 765 GB (Will be attached from [NAS-D05F] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)

My questions / concerns are:

1. How do I migrate (svMotion) the only the big VMDK from the old VM to the new VM safely ? Because when I'm deleting the old VM (PRODFS01-VM) which has been turned off, I don't want to delete the two disks that is now attached to the new VM (PRODFS05-VM).

2. Regarding renaming the VMDK, can I just rename it from the vSphere Console Data Store Browser after turning it off and then attaching it to the new VM ?

From:
D:\ - 1.89 TB (VMFS - [NAS-D01] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)
E:\ - 765 GB (VMFS - [NAS-D05F] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)

Into:
D:\ - 1.89 TB (VMFS - [NAS-D01] PRODFS05-VM/PRODFS05-VM.vmdk)
E:\ - 765 GB (VMFS - [NAS-D05F] PRODFS05-VM/PRODFS05-VM.vmdk)

What caveats do I need to know ?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

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

membership

Create a free account to see this answer

Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.

See answer

Albert Widjaja

ASKER

Ah I see,

so if I want to do it on multiple stage,

Stage I - D:\ - 1.89 TB (VMFS - [NAS-D01] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk) only
Stage II - E:\ - 765 GB (VMFS - [NAS-D05F] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk) only

is that possible ?

After looking for a free disk space in my VMFS clsuter, I cannot see any free disk space that is available to that amount ? is there any other way to do it ?

As for renaming the VMDK to the destination VM name, I guess I will have to upgrade the VCenter from 5.1U1 to 5,1 U3, but that doesn't matter.

SOLUTION

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

membership

Create a free account to see this answer

Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.

See answer

Albert Widjaja

ASKER

Yes, that's the thing, because once the stage 2 is completed, how can I safely delete the old unused VM files of the Old File Server VM - PRODFS01-VM ?

I guess that I just stuck with the New File Server VM - PRODFS05-VM having multiple disks in the old folder like below highlighted:

D:\ - 1.89 TB (VMFS - [NAS-D01] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)
E:\ - 765 GB (VMFS - [NAS-D05F] PRODFS01-VM/PRODFS01-VM.vmdk)

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

manually.

Albert Widjaja

ASKER

Andrew,

will the manual steps below work ?

remove the two disks from the old VM's settings. Ensure that I do NOT select remove from disk.
rename the folders for the two virtual disks (e.g. using the Datastore Browser)
rename the virtual disks using the vmkfstools command line utility
            e.g. [b]vmkfstools -E PRODFS01-VM.vmdk PRODFS05-VM.vmdk[/b]
attach the renamed disks to the new VM
delete the old VM from vSphere console PRODFS01-VM

Open in new window

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

Yes.

Albert Widjaja

ASKER

Thanks !

Moving &amp; Renaming large Disk attached to new VM from the old VM ?

Moving & Renaming large Disk attached to new VM from the old VM ?