VMWare ESXi 6.5 - Thin Provisioned shows wrong after VM creation.

I read there is a way to change them from Thick to Thin and will look in on doing that.

Can be a lot of effort and you may not get the results you want!

What is the datastore ? It's very odd thin is being changed to thick ?

Hello,

You can run a storage vmotion to change the disk from thin to thick, or thick to thin.

Perform the test with a vm.

Regards.

Using the VMware Converter Standalone
It is doing the first job now.
It is insane how all the VMs got changed to Thick.
I never really thought about it when I first noticed them being changed as I was new to VMWare, and I assumed that is what it labeled it as after the creation of the VM.

I will post back once the first job is completed.
It takes over an hour per job, so this is going to be a LONG day.

it is very odd, to see storage provisioning change from what you set, e.g. THIN to THICK.

I never seen it, I would state did you definitely select THIN, as THICK is the default!

Using the VMware Converter Standalone
Did a wonderful job.
The first VM I converted successfully was our DC.
Worked wonderfully.

Thank you, DEMAN-BARCELO
You rock, my friend.
May you have an awesome rest of the weekend and a tremendous week as well.

Wayne

Hello, Andrew.
Yes, I make it a rule to select THIN when I create each of my VMs.
I never select THICK.
When I first started working with ESXi, I did not know much about the choice, and I chose Thick and read up on it.
And deleted the VM, and at that moment, I started creating all my VMs as THIN.
And yes, ALL my VMs would get changed to THICK.
Why? How?
I don't know; it just happened.

The new backup server I set up the other week has kept its THIN provisions.
I don't know what to say, to be honest.

I just did a Google Search for

ESXi thin provisioning gets ch

And before I could finish typing, the following suggestion popped up.

ESXi thin provisioning gets change to thick

I checked to see how many times people have searched for the term.

Google Avg. monthly searches 0-10

So it seems others have had this issue, just not a lot.
But there does not seem to be any pages dedicated to this problem until I created this one.

if you had Storage vMotion as @RAFA mentioned we normally use that! (if you have a license!).

but VMware Converter will convert anything but does involve downtime Storage vMotion does not.

Hi Wayne,
note that for a Domain controller, the best (and supported) configuration (in production) is to use a Thick for the disk that contain the AD Database.
So , you can use a (THIN) disk/vmdk for the system, and another (THICK) disk/vmdk for the database.

@DEMAN-BARCELO (MVP) Thierry

and what do you do if your SAN storage platform ONLY Supports THIN ! (e.g. NFS), and many Enterprise Platforms, on the VMware HCL are THIN by default because of NFS.

and what does Microsoft mean when they state "supported" - not going to work, you cannot raise a support call ?

so are you supposed to use THICK and stick to a local datastore???

I would agrue that V2V (VMware Converter) is not really suitable for completing a conversion of an DC anyway,, unless done correctly, e.g. OFF. based on Microsoft recommendations, a new DC should be created, and roles transferred!

@Wayne Which version of VMware vSphere are you using ? Just out of curiosity, is this 7.0 ? using vCenter Server ?

Thick does not mean use a local datastore ! The VMDK file can be place anywhere. It just means that if you allocate a 20 GB for the disk containing the database, all this space has to be set.

When using non Microsoft solution of virtualization, the support is not done by Microsoft. You have to prove that the problem also appears on VMs that are not on this solution.

Some NFS does not support Thick! (and some Enterprise SANs do not support thick!) - that's my point, and many thousand of organisations have DCs - Thin with no issues

When using non Microsoft solution of virtualization, the support is not done by Microsoft. You have to prove that the problem also appears on VMs that are not on this solution.

Yes, you basically have to create a physical machine or use Microsofts solution!

It's the same argument, about Exchange on Thin, and Snapshots not supported on Production VMs, BUT ALL Backup technologies use Snapshots! That can not be avoid if you need/want to backup on VMware vSphere.

The underlying solution is not seen by the virtual machine.
If the datastore are created remotely on a storage than manage these spaces dynamically is also not visible.
So when you configure Thick VMDK, it will not change a lot on the storage.

Now, if the storage is full, and that for any reason, the Domain controller cannot update its data, the risk of a dirty AD database is great, and the result is unpredictable for all the VMs impacted.

Andrew.
Using 6.5
And have vCenter Server, but have to reinstall and set it up again.
The first time I tried it, it did not go over too well.
I have to look at some more video lessons to make sure I set it up properly next time, which will be by mid-July.
I am changing offices now, so, have to get everything set up for that, and then I will work on the vCenter Server.

Okay, I just wondered if you were using 7.x, and a crazy bug had sneaked in!

Tip - Use FQDN and DNS !