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5 Replies Last post: Jun 7, 2009 10:16 AM by BrennanB
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Partition Changes in 3.5 U4?

Jun 6, 2009 9:47 AM

Click to view BrennanB's profile Enthusiast BrennanB 59 posts since
Feb 14, 2008

I am adding a new host to the cluster and am trying to mimic the partitioning that is on our other 3.5 hosts. I am using Advanced Partitioning but am seeing some behavior I dont quite understand. No matter what order I use or what I try the VMFS3 partition ends up in the Primary and /var in the Extended. This is the opposite of our existing hosts.Below shows details of partitions.

Any explanation of this behavior and any problems it could cause if left as is?

This brings another question, are there any gotchas with partitions changes between Updates?

Current Host Partitioning
SDA1 /boot
SDA2 /
SDA3 /var
SDA4 Extended
SDA5 swap
SDA6 vmfs3
SDA7 vmkcore

New Install

SDA1 /boot
SDA2 vmfs3
SDA3 /
SDA4 extended
SDA5 /var
SDA6 swap
SDA7 vmkcore


Reply Re: Partition Changes in 3.5 U4? Jun 6, 2009 9:57 AM
Click to view AndreTheGiant's profile Guru AndreTheGiant 5,650 posts since
Aug 28, 2008
Are you using ESX or ESXi?

In my installation (ESX) I have VMFS on the extended partition.
But I do not remember if was 3.5U3 upgraded to U4.
But I seen a lot of ESXi with VMFS in a primary partition.

What's the best solution? I think there isn't-
If you plan to use only local storage, the best is have two different logical drive, one for system, one for VMFS.

From ESX4 the schema also change, but is more interesting (here an example on local disk on a HP):

/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 * 1 140 1124518+ 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 141 154 112455 fc VMware VMKCORE
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 155 8854 69882750 5 Extended
/dev/cciss/c0d0p5 155 8854 69882718+ fb VMware VMFS

You have 1 primary partition free and the extended partition at the bootom of the disk.

Andre
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Reply Re: Partition Changes in 3.5 U4? Jun 6, 2009 10:11 AM
in response to: AndreTheGiant
Click to view BrennanB's profile Enthusiast BrennanB 59 posts since
Feb 14, 2008
All of the installs I have done\seen also had the VMFS3 in the Extended which is why I dont understand this new install placing VMFS3 in the Primary. I have tried redoing it several times but the outcome was the same each time.

This is ESX and we use SAN for storage. After configuring partitions we use whatever is left over locally for local VMFS3.

Reply Re: Partition Changes in 3.5 U4? Jun 6, 2009 3:28 PM
in response to: BrennanB
Click to view BrennanB's profile Enthusiast BrennanB 59 posts since
Feb 14, 2008
Just thought of something, the solution would be to Force Primary on /boot, /, and /var but I still would like to know why i am seeing this.
Reply Re: Partition Changes in 3.5 U4? Jun 6, 2009 5:55 PM
in response to: BrennanB
Click to view Rumple's profile Master Rumple 1,245 posts since
Jan 6, 2005

I don't have an answer for the partition problem as I always force /, /boot, and SWAP to be primary and everything else goes automatically on extended (as you can only have 3 primary and extended)

I would make the suggestion that you NOT create the vmfs partitions during the installation phase. Once you have ESX running, use the VIC to connect directly to the server and create your VMFS volumes. VMFS created during the installation phase is NOT aligned properly, whereas the VIC create a partition aligned on the correct partition boundaries.


Reply Re: Partition Changes in 3.5 U4? Jun 7, 2009 10:16 AM
in response to: Rumple
Click to view BrennanB's profile Enthusiast BrennanB 59 posts since
Feb 14, 2008

Good idea, that is the route I am going to take but I am still curious about this behavior.


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