http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vi/esxi3.5?view=discussions Most recent forum messages en Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:59:49 GMT Clearspace 1.10.12 (http://jivesoftware.com/products/clearspace/) 2009-06-26T21:59:49Z en http://communities.vmware.com/message/1296363?tstart=0#1296363 Nice thought, but you are giving way too much credit to the design of a VM. It's basically like a static zip file with files in it. It may be a file system that hosts a series of files of those 'zips' but what happens inside the zip is basically up to the guest OS. The only difference in format is the header information for reading vmdk flat files, otherwise they are pretty much the same.<br /> <br /> You shouldn't get bogged down with partition info as this is handled by converter, and you won't have issue by moving them over to ESX. Partition alignment is handled by converter.<br /> <br /> So you can't just move a vmdk and copy it to ESX, it would still need to be converted, so this is made easy by using VM Converter to convert a stand alone VM and using the ESX as the target. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:55:18 GMT RParker http://communities.vmware.com/message/1296363?tstart=0#1296363 2009-06-26T21:55:18Z 4 months, 4 weeks ago http://communities.vmware.com/message/1296341?tstart=0#1296341 <br /> Believe I finally am able to wrap my mind around why Partition Alignment is not a factor for VMs created by and running on Workstation vs ESX, on Workstation any data partitions would be at or within the file level whereas defined partitions on ESX appear to be fixed and static physical configurations (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).<br /> <p /> If I understand this correctly, then what are the consequences of converting a Workstation VM to run on ESX? It seems to me that any data partitions which might have been running at or within the file level on Workstation could potentially be running in its own partition on ESX. If this is so, can it be assumed that approved VMware utilities automatically configure the beginning of the partition accordingly (assume some multiple of 128 instead of 64)? Or, at least in the case of an OS like *NIX would this concern be irrelevant because the partition type would be Linux instead of VMFS?<br /> <p /> Basically, I'm looking for any gotchas involved when doing a Workstation/ESX conversion, at least on the topic of Partition Alighment there doesn't seem to be any documentation or mention anywhere I can find (but maybe it's just not an issue).<br /> <p /> TIA,<br /> <p /> Tony Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:20:58 GMT Virtually http://communities.vmware.com/message/1296341?tstart=0#1296341 2009-06-26T21:20:58Z 4 months, 4 weeks ago 1