Help resizing virtual disk

[Highspeedlane]

Hello,

I have a single ESXi 4.1 hypervisor (no VCenter) managing several virtual servers on the same physical server. I would like to resize one of the virtual server disks (provisioned thick) to a smaller size. I have researched some posts on this but it's not clear cut.

As I understand it, you are supposed to use Standalone Converter to create a copy of an existing virtual machine and move it on to another virtual machine with the disk resized to desired volume. In Standalone Converter, I can select the source vm, but I have no options to select a destination, and only receive the notice, "This virtual machine already exists".

If anyone has any tips on the best way to do this, your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[DSTAVERT]

I usually use Powered on and point to the source Virtual machine. The destination will be the ESXi host. You will need to provide a new name.

[Highspeedlane]

Pardon my noob-ness, but what is Powered on? Is that a 3rd party utility? Thanks.

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

It was perfectly clear to me. Apologies. When using converter I use the "Powered On machine" as the source type (obviously the machine must be powered on for this to work) Follow along with the wizard and select the  ESXi host as the destination.

[idle-jam]

this blog could be useful http://www.cynapse.com/community/home/cyn.in-users/howto-resize-a-vmware-image-using-vmware-converte...

[Highspeedlane]

I appreciate the tip. I'm out of time for today but I'll try that first thing in the morning and report back how it went. Thanks again for the help.

[DSTAVERT]

Very welcome. Do let us know how it goes.

[idle-jam]

good luck!!

[Highspeedlane]

Perfect!

That worked exactly as described. It's almost like using Ghost but way easier because you don't have to deal with all the pre-cloning set up.

Thanks to all for the helpful info.

[idle-jam]

do you mind sharing how long does the whole process took? and how large was the disk.

[Highspeedlane]

No not at all. The data on disk was 49 Gb in size and when I started it, it gave an estimated completion time of 1 hour 12 minutes. It was pretty close to that length of time it seems, though I had to leave the server room so can't be 100% certain.

[DSTAVERT]

Glad it worked well. You will find that Converter is good friend. It can even be used to hot migrate between ESXi hosts. As the process nears completion it can shut down services on the source machine. Copy last minute changes on the source to the clone and then turn on the clone. Minor downtime but . . .