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jfmorales
Contributor
Contributor

Resizing Virtual Disks

How can I increase the size of a virtual disk for a virtual machine that already exists? Using VMWare ESX Server 3.5.0, none of the following techniques are working:

- Clone the VM and specify a new size for the hard disk

- Deploy from a template and specify a new size for the hard disk

- Use Edit Settings to specify a new size for the hard disk of a VM, and then boot into a gparted CD to adjust the partition size to take advantage of the new space

None of these techniques results in any kind of error or warning message, but in no case does the virtual disk actually get increased in size.

By the way, the starting VM or template do not have any snapshots associated with them.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Joseph

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9 Replies
Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

Did you try VMware Converter?

http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

Install inside guest OS and create another copy of your virtual machine, this time with right sized virtual disk(s). File System size should adjust itself at the same time.

Luis_F
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Try this:

vmkfstools -X NewTotalCapacitym "/vmfs/volumes/DataStorage/VMFolder/VDisk_Name.vmdk"

Take care with m parameter after NewTotalCapacity.

Regards

Cameron2007
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I have managed to resize the virtual disks withing ESX by using VMware convertor. This also allows you to keep a backup of the original source disk as this was done on production servers as a test and I could not afford to run the risk of corrupting the original VMs. I have tested this a couple of times and it worked succesfully for me.

jfmorales
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks! I was able to use the VMWare Converter to create a clone with a resized disk. Only, I ran VMWare Converter from a client workstation. I'm not clear on why one would install it inside the guest OS.

Also, the VMWare Converter documentation refers to a VMWare Converter Boot Disk that sounds like it would be handy. But there is no reference to how to get such a disk. Do you know if there is a downloadable .iso image of the VMWare Converter Boot Disk somewhere?

Thanks again,

Joseph

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jfmorales
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, Cameron. That is a very helpful document.

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jfmorales
Contributor
Contributor

Luis, Thanks for the info on vmkfstools. I'm not familiar with the command line interface, but I've made a note of this command for possible future use.

Joseph

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Cameron2007
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi Joseph,

I also have a doc for extending disks here it is too.

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tjk
Contributor
Contributor

Hello-

I found this article in a search as I had the same issue, we could add disk space and use gparted to merge it into existing partitions, but could not find a way to remove it.

I tried to convert using VMware Converter ( I have used it before ) but on the screen where you normally resize the partitions, the "Used" column is all N/A and the "New Disk Space" column where you choose your options is greyed out.

These VMs are CentOS 5.1 32bit.

Any suggestions? I could just use gparted again but that doesn't actually get rid of the extra space, just alter the size of the partitions.

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tjk
Contributor
Contributor

I did some additional searches and found the below link:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/809507#809507

Can someone please confirm that it's not possible to downsize Linux disks?

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