Disk Provisioning is disabled in ESXi 4.1

[mseifi]

I created a VM for Windows 2008 R2 with 80GB on ESXi 4.1 Server. I named the VM svr1. I exported the svr1 VM and imported to another ESXi 4.1 server. I renamed the exported VM to svr2. I need to increase the disk space for svr2 but the "Disk Provisioning" is disabled (see attached). The storage type is svr 2 is "Thick". I appreciate  any guidance.

[idle-jam]

the disk -00001 is a snapshot, you can't expand a snapshot. you need to delete/commit your snapshot first.

[depping · Accepted solution]

Commit the snapshot first indeed, then expand it.

Duncan (VCDX)

Available now on Amazon: vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS technical deepdive

[mseifi]

I'll give that  a try.

Thanks,

[skumar9]

Disk Provisioning is disabled in ESXi 4.0... is it only available in ESXi 4.1?

[uttam_choudhary]

No. It is not disabled in any version. In your case you are using "thin provisioning", that looks to be causing this.

[skumar9]

i tried using thick provisioned disk, that too did not work

[mseifi]

Committing the snapshots worked.

Thanks

[little_horse]

I think you can't do this to IDE disk, at least with GUI. Probably there are some ways to do it through CLI.  No

[skumar9]

By IDE, you mean local hard disk right?

The datastore is a SAN storage

[skumar9]

I have not taken any snapshots

[little_horse]

Yes, I meant IDE. Virtual Disk connected as an IDE disk will not let you change its size. I have faced this problem recently.

[empirenet]

I changed the vm disk size via the cmd line. Enable SSH login. SSh to ESXi 4.1. login and go to  directoy for vm's

/vmfs/volumes/ (vm direrecoty) then run  vmkfstools  -X 20G "vm-machine –to-expand".vmdk

[nava_thulasi39]

Hi,

little_horse mentioned this IDE option, It won't work even through CLI too..

[empirenet]

Hi

You have to make sure you have space on the datastore. I upgraded my vm provisioned size from 14GB with 20GB via the ssh. There are ways to change from thin to thick etc but I only needed to give my vm more HDD space.  If you are unsure create another vm and test it in there. This worked for my problem. Also view attachment.

Regards

Herman