ESXi5 add and mount thin additional storage to Ubuntu but keep it small

[rossae]

Hi,

I'd like to add an additional storage to my server but want to make it easy to backup using export OVF so keeping the disk size small. (I still haven't tried restoring using OVF but I'm hoping it works fine)

I'd like that disk to start off small and increase up to 1 TB.

I was wondering what would be better in terms of backup and reliability of the drive data.

Is it better to start off with a smaller drive e.g: 100GB and increase it with time to 1TB? Is it complicated to extend the disk later on?

Or am I better off to just set it to 1TB from the start?

Is it possible to squash the file every once in a while to clean up empty sections from the VMDK file to make it easier to backup?

When I mount the new drive into my Ubuntu server, do I need to format the drive or is it possible to quick format somehow? If so, how?

I'm guessing formating will allocate the full drive storage into the ESXi.

Thanks in advance,

Aaron.

[Virtualinfra]

yes you can start the disk size as less as you want and you increase it on going.

Refer the below kb for increase disk size of linux VM. i dont get a link to increase disk size for ubuntu.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006371

[john23]

Use thin vmdk....

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100541...