Extending VM Disk to be larger than 2 TB ?
Hi All,
I've got one VMware VM that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 with the size of 1.9 TB the VMDK
it is running out of disk space at the moment.
So if I extend it to be 2.7 TB, would it be any problem later on with vSphere 5.5 or Veeam backup or maybe Windows itself ?
I've got one VMware VM that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 with the size of 1.9 TB the VMDK
it is running out of disk space at the moment.
So if I extend it to be 2.7 TB, would it be any problem later on with vSphere 5.5 or Veeam backup or maybe Windows itself ?
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ASKER
Is there any maximum limit that I need to be aware of ?
ASKER
Somehow this old VM was built by just one 1.9 TB VMDK and then the partition is MBR NTFS:
C:\ 100 GB
D:\ 1800 GB
The D drive is now running out of disk space.
Can I still expand it to more than 2 TB for the D:\ drive ?
C:\ 100 GB
D:\ 1800 GB
The D drive is now running out of disk space.
Can I still expand it to more than 2 TB for the D:\ drive ?
SOLUTION
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Even though 5.5 supports max VMDK size 62TB, VI client will continue to show it as 2TB as all new features from 5.5 are supported in Web client. If you check the same from web client, it will definitely show 62TB VMDK as max size. If you want to create VMDK size more than 2TB, you will have to use web client. All features upto 5.1 are fully supported on VI client.
I'd say you can add another 100 GB, thats it.
You can create a bigger VMDK, but Windows won't be able to use it.
You could create a new VMDK, attach it, copy all data from D:\ to the new VMDK and swap drive letters. Will take a while, use double space and I'm not sure if you can shrink the first VMDK after the migration.
You could create a new VMDK, attach it, copy all data from D:\ to the new VMDK and swap drive letters. Will take a while, use double space and I'm not sure if you can shrink the first VMDK after the migration.
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There seem to be tools available to convert an MBR disk to a GPT disk.
http://www.thewindowsclub.
I would definitely not try that on an important machine.
http://www.thewindowsclub.
I would definitely not try that on an important machine.
ASKER
Thank you !
An additional (non-boot) disk (separate VMDK) could be larger.