ESXi 5.1 - Is the 2TB limit passed yet?

[thanatica]

So I didn't see it in the "waht's new" section on the product page, because it should be obvious that every OS in the world can access and use volumes that are larger than 2TB. Regardless of my assumption, I'd still like confirmation that this is the case for ESXi 5.1, since ESXi 4.x strangely didn't like >2TB volumes.

So, can I use a 3TB harddisk yet?

[sparrowangelste]

you can use v,mfs larger than 2tb but the vmdk itself is still limited as I havent read on any changes either

[Troy_Clavell]

a single HDD can still only be 2TB minus 512bytes, if carved off a VMFS LUN.  If you use a RDM in physical compatibility mode, you can go to 64TB

[thanatica]

@sparrowangels

And by VMFS you mean a partition on a plain vanilla local single SATA harddisk? That can be larger than 2TB?

The limit on vmdk files is actually quite shameful. 2TB is not *that* much, that is has to be a limit. I understand why it's a limit, I just don't understand why it isn't fixed. Filesystems like Ext4 can create files much larger than 2TB... (16TB actually)

@Troy

I don't understand your answer. A single HDD can very much be more than 2TB. There are loads of 3TB models on the market for quite some time. And using a RAID volume, you can go much further than that. What is a "RDM in physical compatibility mode", and why does that work?

[Troy_Clavell]

you cannot present a HDD to a guest that exceeds the 2TB minus 512bytes limit.  RDMs are the exception.

see, http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r51/vsphere-51-configuration-maximums.pdf

However, if you are asking about LUN size, yes that has increased to 64TB

[TomHowarth]

Are you talking about the ability to use GPT disks as a holder for a VMFS partition? if so then have a read of this by Cormac Hogan of VMware http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/08/vsphere-50-storage-features-part-7-gpt.html

[thanatica]

Troy, you say I cannot use >2TB harddisks, but I can create a LUN larger than 2TB. So which is it? It makes no sense to me.

Suppose I got me a 3TB harddisk. A plain vanilla singe local SATA disk connected to a totally normal onboard/local SATA controller. Can I use all 3TB of it or not?

[eeg3]

Yes, you can create a VMFS5 datastore on that 3TB drive. A virtual machine residing on that datastore cannot have a .vmdk larger than the 2TB-512bytes limit, though. The only time a virtual machine can have a .vmdk larger than that is if it is a physical RDM.

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

What Troy it talking about is the maximum size of a VMDK file with is 2TB-512K, also the Maximum size of a VMFS Partition is 64TB,  you are however talking about the size of the Phyiscal Disks that make up the VMFS Partition,

so long as your Bios supports GPT disks (disks greater that 2TB) then yes you can.

[aagredo]

Hi Tom,

I am using ESXi 5.1, local SCSI Hard Drives on RAID6 (HP Raid Controler P420i supported by vmaware)

I have 12 Hard Drives of 3TB each on RAID6 for a total of 27TB availables.

I created my firs datsotore1 with 1.9TB, and my  virtual machines are runing with no problem, but...

when I tried to add/create more LUN to my vmware, nothing show  on  "Add Storage ->  Slect Disk/LUN"

I can see my Array controler and mu 27TB capacity on the storage adapters

thanks on advance

[Josh26]

It's really not useful replying to an old thread, particularly when your problem isn't related, as is this case.

A single LUN can compromise of only one datastore.

You have created datastore1, at 1.9TB, on one large LUN. You cannot then add a datastore2 to the remaining space.

If you require a series of smaller datastores, you should use HP's ACU to create them at this size, so VMware will see them as separate disks.

[DarkHorseSki]

I've done the same thing you have, except I created 2 logical drives via the BIOS on my HP box and cannot get vSphere to see the larger (8TB via 9 1TB drives RAID 6) storage device at all.  It sees the small BIOS partition and the 1 TB mirror that I installed ESXi onto (and into which I put a datastore to get going.)