topic Re: VMFS or EXT3 in VI: VMware ESX® 3.0 Discussions

VMFS or EXT3

timcwhite — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:34:35 GMT

Can ESX server use ext 3 as its file system or does it have to use VMFS

Thanks

Tim

Re: VMFS or EXT3

Mr_Flibble1 — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:38:28 GMT

It uses both.

VMFS is a special file system designed for storing large files -VMs- where as ext3 is what the console os (linux) uses to load itself, and run on.

Generally, you partition your ESX system with standard linux ext3 partions (and 1 swap) and have a VMFS file system on which to store your VMs.

I am leaving much out, but that is the general idea.

Re: VMFS or EXT3

timcwhite — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:50:09 GMT

Great response! I installed ESX on a server with 64gigs of local storage. After blowing away the recommended partitions, I never specified creating a vmfs partion. Once the machine finished loading, I ran a command the following command: vdf -h. It showed me the partions that I created along with one that says: /vmfs/devices. It says there is a file system : /vmware/devices. I didn't create this. I left 24 gigs free during the setup. Do you have any ideas what vmware/devices is and why does it say 64 gigs available?

Thanks

Re: VMFS or EXT3

christianZ — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:11:03 GMT

Post here the output from "fdisk -l"

Re: VMFS or EXT3

ewannema — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:31:24 GMT

/vmfs/devices and /vmfs/volumes are VMware's way of grafting in the VMFS disk and fileystems to the service console. Generally you will only deal with /vmfs/volumes since that is where the VMFS filesystems are mounted.

BTW: I believe it is best practice to not create VMFS volumes intended for VM storage during installation. It is best to do that via the VI client. The VI client/Virtual Center do a little bit of extra work to make sure the disk alignment is optimal.

Re: VMFS or EXT3

azn2kew — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:53:36 GMT

Even though default partition option is okay but when dealing with production servers I rather have my own partitions written down with standard 2048MB for each basic paritions and 6144MB for my root partition and the rest of disk spaces will be formatted with VMFS3 with option to "Fill maximum" disk space left so it uses all for VMFS.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems LLC.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant