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rajbps
Contributor
Contributor

ESXI 4.1

Hiya,

I have downloaded esxi 4.1 and installed it on a 1 TB drive, installed a few vm machines and all is looking good and they are in production.

We are now looking to move the datastore on a raided machine either another one or use the same box and enable raid5 on it.

I believe I will need to reinstall the vmware 4.1 but I do not how to transfer the whole of the current datastore to the new install without loosing anyting.

This is the free version.

Any help is welcome.

Cheers,

Raj

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9 Replies
wickedsunny
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Raj,

What is the location of the new Datastore. have ou added more drives to the server and created a Raid 5 out of those drives and you want to move the VM's to this new Raid volume. If yes, then you should see this new Lun under the storage adpaters tab in the local adapter. If yes, proceed with adding this as a datastore, keeping in mind that you select the 1 MB block size for compatibilty with the original data store.

Once done you should now see 2 datastores under the Storage tab. now you can use the move file option from the browse datastore window to move each and everyfine one by one to the new datastore (after shutting down the vm). This task can be done from the command line as well using the VMKFSTOOLS command. Can give you further steps if we are on the same page.

Thanks

Sunny

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the Communities -

I have moved this discussion to a more approriate forum -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

If both the new and the old ESXi installations are available you can use something like the free Veeam fastscp http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html to copy the virtual machine files between hosts. Once transfered to the new host you will need to use the ESXi vSphere client datastore browser and navigate to each VM and right click on the VMX file for each VM and "Add to Inventory". If you will not have the two hosts available then you will need to use FAastSCP to transfer the virtual machine files to a temporary location.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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bulletprooffool
Champion
Champion

FastSCP is the easiest way - and 'importing' each VmX as stated before - thought I'd just contribute with a quick script to speed up the inport process:

http://www.get-virtual.info/2011/02/03/script-of-the-day-import-all-vms-from-a-datastore-to-vmware-e...

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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rajbps
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for everyone for the ideas and answers.

The transfer will be between 2 servers.

Will try and see.

Cheers,

Raj

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bulletprooffool
Champion
Champion

Have a look at FastSCP by Veeam for shiftin data between serveres - very simple to use!

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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Nikhil_Patwa
Expert
Expert

You can also try using VMware Standalone Converter 4.0 to transfer vms between ESXi hosts, I prefer using the VMware Standalone Converter.

Nikhil

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rajbps
Contributor
Contributor

I installed vmware on a second box no raid exact box at the primary one used veeam fastscp.

When i log on the second server, under the left had side, i can see the vmware host but no datastore.

If i browse the storage i can see the data store but no option to add to inventory the new vm files.

If i try rescan for datastore still no joy.

Any ideas pls.

Cheers,

Raj

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

So have you copies the files from one host to another?  If the VM files have been copied,  you can right click on the new datastore and select Browse.  Go to each VM's folder, find the VMX file and right click and select Add to Inventory.

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