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usevm
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Embedded esxi storage partitioning

We recently got a server from Dell that had ESXi 6.7 embedded (SD-card) and it's my first time using such a server.

I've always been installing vsphere ESXi manually.

The server uses local storage only and there's no shared storage.

When I was setting it up, I noticed that the datastore wasn't present so I clicked on "new datastore" and when I got to the "select partitioning options", it showed

1. EFI system

2. Basic Data

From the top drop down, if I select "Use full disk" the EFI system would go away.

One would typically use the "use full disk" option right?

And I also noticed that the scratch partition didn't exist either.

Can I select "use full disk" and create a scratch partition manually afterwards?

Thanks

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Nawals
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Looks good however scratch partition is missing due to you created VMFS datastore. You can create the scratch partition.

Please mark helpful or correct if your issue resolved.

NKS Please Mark Helpful/correct if my answer resolve your query.

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Nawals
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Can You please explain but more about server and how many local disk attached on server except SD card where installed esxi on it.

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a_p_
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I've seen such weird preconfigured hosts, where one of the ESXi partitions was placed on HDD/SSD for whatever reason.

If that is the case, i.e. you cannot clear the partition table from the ESXi GUI in order to create a datastore using the whole disk space, I'd suggest that you reinstall ESXi manually, after resetting/clearing the partition table on the local storage.

André

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usevm
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Except for the SD card, there are 4 x 2 TB drives configured as Raid-10.

Normally when I install ESXi manually, the partitioning is done automatically and this is my first time using a server with preconfigured ESXi (embedded) so I was wondering if I could "use full disk" for the partitioning step.  

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Nawals
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As per screenshotS ESXi partitions was placed on HDD for some reason. You require to clear the partition table using PartedUtil. However, you need to remove all local disk and connect to your computer and start disk management to delete all active partitions [if not allow to delete from PartedUtil] and connect back to the server. you can re-install ESXi on your SD card and all local storage disks you can use for local data store. can you please run the below command to check the disk partition on ESXi and share the output.

cd /dev/disks

ls /dev/disks -lh

NKS Please Mark Helpful/correct if my answer resolve your query.
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usevm
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The size of the SD disk where ESXi was pre-installed is 15 GB so it shows that.

mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

Couldn't I just select the "use full disk" option in creating a new disk store?

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Nawals
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You can see in the screenshot, some ESXi partitions showing in your local drive instead of SD card. You can try to use "use full disk" However, it will not allow you to create datastore due to ESXi partitions part of it for some reason. So As I said previous to remove all disks from server and connect to windows machine and start disk management to delete all active partition and connect all disk back to server and re-install ESXi host on SD card. Also, You can try to clear the partition table from GUI on specific disk as showing below If allow, Else you follow aforesaid.

pastedImage_0.png

Please mark helpful or correct if your issue resolve.

NKS Please Mark Helpful/correct if my answer resolve your query.
usevm
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I just tried the "use full disk" and it went through and now it's showing as vmfs.

Not sure why it was showing the ESXi partitions before for the local HDD though but now it's only showing VMFS after creating it using "use full disk" and the Vsphere is still running after a reboot.

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Nawals
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Great. Can you please share below command output to check the ESXi partitions to confirm all looks good.

cd /dev/disks

ls /dev/disks -lh

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usevm
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Here's the output.

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Nawals
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Looks good however scratch partition is missing due to you created VMFS datastore. You can create the scratch partition.

Please mark helpful or correct if your issue resolved.

NKS Please Mark Helpful/correct if my answer resolve your query.
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usevm
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Yes, I've created the scratch partition manually under the newly created datastore.