Expanding Hard Disk - Stuck at 2GB?

[CinciTech]

I have an ESXi 5 host with a VM which has a 2TB virtual disk on a 3TB physical hard disk (the datastore is the 3TB disk).  Initially, I had moved a 320GB virtual disk from a failing physical disk, then created the 2TB virtual disk and eventually moved the important files from the 320GB virtual disk to the 2TB virtual disk.  Today I deleted the 320GB virtual disk image file.  Now, I would like to expand the 2TB virtual disk to fill the 3TB physical disk.

i have followed the instructions at http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100404....  I am positive I have not used snapshots on this VM.  The VM is powered off.  When I try to go into the VM settings and expand the disk, it tells me the max size is 2048.00GB.  It is currently 2TB, thin provisioned.  What might be causing me to be unable to expand this disk?

After doing a little more digging into my datastore to find some obvious setting I've messed up, I noticed it says I'm using VMFS 5.58, and the maximum file size is 2.00TB.  Is this a hard limit, or can I upgrade to a different VMFS to utilize a disk size over 2TB?

Message was edited by: CinciTech

[jrmunday]

Yes, the maximum size for a VMDK is 2TB - 512 bytes.

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

The 2 TB -512 B limitation for VMDK files is still in effect with ESXi 5 - so you will not be able to have a virtual disk larger than 2 TB - check out http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r51/vsphere-51-configuration-maximums.pdf

[CinciTech]

Yuck.  I didn't imagine they'd be stuck at such a low disk space max when everything else is pretty much sky's-the-limit.  I probably would've opted not to virtualize if I'd know this one...

At any rate, thanks for the link.  This info pretty much confirms it, and might be useful in the future.  *patiently waits for virtualization to catch up with the physical world*

[mcowger]

If you want to dedicate the whole disk to the VM, you could make it a pRDM, which would give it access to the entire 3TB.

[CinciTech]

Is RDM an option if I don't have a SAN?  I've done a little research over the weekend about your suggestion, but RDM is greyed out for me as I don't have a SAN.

[markpattersones]

Add a 1TB datastore and create a hard disk for the VM in there. Then merge them at the OS level.

[tiberias70]

you can attach a disk of 2TB and use this one in rawmode.

[TomHowarth]

you can add extra VMDK's and span them within the OS.