Well,
I think I've finally addressed the major issues and am now on the final steps, transferring the file. Boy, what a lot of headaches if the vmware converter doesn't work, and although I haven't analyzed conclusively why that didn't work the circumstantial evidence to this point indicates it's because the temporary image is created on the same partition (maybe even the same directory) of the application. That really sucks because typically I care less about reserving enormous amounts of free disk space where my applications are installed and usually reserve more where data is stored. This is more of a concern the larger the diskfile is. Also, re-configuring the OS temp files (on Windows TEMP and TMP) has no effect... The temporary image is not stored there.
So, since vmware converter isn't working for me and I haven't yet located vmkfstools (I think it might be part of the main ESX install and part of the RCLI package), I instead am using the following strategy
This procedure is actually quite involved because ESXi has all sorts of access and services turned off, and it took me awhile to determine what the environmental requirements were to run vmware-vdiskmanager (which is included in Workstation). This procedure completely sidesteps any free space requirements on the partition where vmware converter and vmware workstation are installed, you only need to be certain of sufficient free space requirements where you actually create disks.
1. Converting the diskfile to be ESX compatible
vmware-vdiskmanager -r full sourcepath to sourcefile -t 4 full targetpath with new targetfilename
Remember that if you're converting a growable file you need free space that exceeds the fully grown diskfile. It also looks like the process first creates a fully grown but empty file, then fills the empty file with file contents.
2. Before you actually copy/transfer your disk file, I highly recommend you create an empty VM on ESXi first...
Follow the usual steps but don't configure a diskfile. You can point this machine to a diskfile later. Because you can't specify a directory for your VM when you create it, it's best to allow ESXi to create the VM directory structure <before> you copy your file.
3. Copying the file
A major administrative problem with ESXi is that the GUI console is woefully inadequate and no normal "Internet" applications to access the machine remotely are enabled. I'm not sure what method VMware Converter and Infrastructure Client are using, but it's not the usual methods like SSH, SCP, FTP, TELNET, etc. So, this is what needs to be done...
Gain access to the command line console to enable necessary services* At the ESXi default console, press ALT-F1, then type "unsupported" -- After providing root credentials, you will have access to the console* Enable SSH (for remote access) and SCP (for file transfers. I also tried FTP but it doesn't work)* Open with vi /etc/inetd.conf* uncomment out (remove the # sign) from the beginning of lines for SSH and SCP* Since restarting services is insufficient, restart ESXI by exiting command line (ALT-F2), then accessing Shutdown/Restart (F12)* If you're running Windows, install WinSCP, configure to connect to the target using SCP and configure your source directory. Highly recommended is to also configure your target directory (this is where SSH comes in handy and Putty is a good Windows SSH client) your target directory will be a subdirectory of the /vmfs/ directory on ESXi
Whew! That's a heck of a lot of work to do what should really be pretty simple (or so I would think) Converting and transferring these very large files also takes a very long time, depending on your disk subsystems and network bandwidth it can take a very long time. I'm doing this running ESXi in Workstation 6.5, and it'll likely take over 5 hrs to complete a 16GB conversion and transfer even without explorations and experimentations.
References
Enabling SSH
If there was an attempted conversion it would have jobs listed in it. A job is a line that starts with a \[ # 1 ] for a first job.
