Create new datastore using partition or free space

[MarinKostov]

Hi,

I am trying to create Datastore in ESXi 5. I want to select free partition on the HDD or unpartitioned space. However this option is somehow not available and the system wants to use all partitions (delete them).

How can I select only one partition? Please take a look at the screenshot.

Thanks!

[Virtualinfra]

What do you see after select disk lun?.. seems to be all the partition belong to same LUN and that lun is provided with access to ESX(i).. As storage admin to give access to only 477 GB free space to ESX(i).. by doing masking from storage appliance and you will run out this issue.. you need to work with storage for this..

[AndreTheGiant]

From GUI you cannot specify a partition. This because usually a datastore is on the entire disk.

Use the CLI and vmkfstools instead.

[MarinKostov]

Thank you for your reply!

Can I use the New-Datastore cmdlet and if yes - how?

The HDD where the new datastore should be created is local.

Id                   : HostSystem-ha-host/t10.ATA_____ST31500341AS________________________________________9VS0M413
CanonicalName        : t10.ATA_____ST31500341AS________________________________________9VS0M413
RuntimeName          : vmhba0:C0:T0:L0
Key                  : key-vim.host.ScsiDisk-0100000000202020202020202020202020395653304d343133535433313530
LunType              : disk
Model                : ST31500341AS
SerialNumber         : unavailable
Vendor               : ATA
ConsoleDeviceName    : /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST31500341AS________________________________________9VS0M413
CapacityMB           : 1430799
MultipathPolicy      : Fixed
CommandsToSwitchPath :
BlocksToSwitchPath   :
HostId               : HostSystem-ha-host
VMHostId             : HostSystem-ha-host
VMHost               : 10.0.0.20
Uid                  : /VIServer=root@10.0.0.20:443/VMHost=HostSystem-ha-host/ScsiLun=t10.ATA_____ST31500341AS_________
                       _______________________________9VS0M413/
IsLocal              : True
ExtensionData        : VMware.Vim.HostScsiDisk

Thanks!

[AndreTheGiant]

I don't know the exat cmdlet syntax.

For vmkfstools you can find (maybe) more reference.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

If possible at all, I guess you will need to create the VMFS partition manually using either fdisk or partedUtil followed by "vmkfstools -C vmfs5 -b 1m disk_ID:P" see Using vmkfstools

Maybe http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1009829 and http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1036609 will be helpful too

André

Message was edited by: a.p. - replaced link to vmkfstools

[MarinKostov]

Well Ifinally have what I wanted - datastore using single partition. But the cost is deleting all other partitions

I used vmkfstools to create datastore, but it was inhappy since the partition type wasn't 0xFB. So I used partedUtil to set the particular partition to that type, but it created only this partition and removed all other.

It is way too complicated to work only with the console in "unsupported" mode. I am really missing the mouse and easy way to select text, copy, paste. Imagine how would you type vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST31500341AS________________________________________9VS0M413
with all that underscores....

Anyway, thank you all for your help!