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HPU-ADM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can you take a replicated vm's vmdk and attach it to another vm

Ok, before you folks go crazy about the subject, my goal is to somehow be creative in migrating a windows disk (vmdk) from a windows 2012 server to a windows 2019 server.  I'm new to vsphere replication, i just installed 8.3 a week ago.

So the part if have setup is the replication appliance on my virtual center and i'm replicating a windows 2012 files server on the same virtual center, but to a different datastore.

Maybe someone's tried this and can give me some tips.  What i want to do in theory is stop the sync and somehow merge the latest differences in the to replicated vmdk. Them move said vmdk file to the windows 2019 file server.  I know it's crazy but the windows 2012 file server has 6 disks, one for group drives, one for redirected windows directories, one for profiles,etc.  These drives are rather large and our current backup and restore would take hours to restore the drive i want.

So overall, i'm trying to move my user's windows redirected folders that's one one drive of an overloaded file server to a another new built file server dedicated for that purpose, with the least amount of downtime.  After moving the drive, all i would do is update the dfs link.  There would be a maintenance window where vdi access would be disabled and i would shutdown everyone's vm to perform the move.

Thoughts?

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ashilkrishnan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You can try it, provided the new Windows server does not have issues recognizing the disk.

1. Check the replicated VMDKs on target datastore

2. If the VMDKs are a chain of disks, run vmkfstools -i against latest disk to clone the vmdks into single VMDK

3. Attach the VMDK to the new Windows server

Let us know how it works for you

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HPU-ADM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I will try this in a few days. This looks promising.

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