How to properly remove a VMFS Datastore??

[AdamW201110141]

Hi There,

We added newer faster disks on our SAN (NetApp) and need to migrate guests to the new storage then remove the old storage/datastores. We plan to storage vMotion guests to the new VMFS datastores that will be created on the new disks. Typically I would just migrate the guests, then unmap the storage from the ESXi hosts and Re-scan the HBAs from vCenter.

I've just inherited the environment and we had some recent issues with our environment not liking missing LUN/datastore paths, that have caused lots of downtime (long story) so I'm a little skiddish about the process to remove the unused datastores.

Hoping for a sanity check here... is it as easy as just removing everything that is running on the existing datastore(s), then from the SAN and Controller, just un-mapping/masking the LUN presented. Then re-scan the HBA so the hosts doesn't see the storage any more?

I found the following KBs that seem to suggest a more indepth process. Do I really need to go thru those processes? I've never had to do it in the past.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101508...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009449

I feel dumb for even asking, but recent issues made be question myself.

Thanks,

-Adam

[weinstein5]

The steps are pretty much straight forward - remove all VMs and anything that is actively accessing the LUN - Mask the LUN which can be done either at the ESX/ESXi host which the links describe or at the SAN and rebuild the LUN -

[AdamW201110141]

So, just removing the initiator group mapping on the NetApp will work, as long as nothing is accessing the datastore? Nothing else needs to be done on the host other than rescanning the HBAs?

I'll already have the new storage presented and guests running on that, so It'll be matter of waiting to make sure removing the old datastores don't cause an issue then deleting the existing LUNs on the NetApp

-Adam

[Walfordr]

I have seen cases like you mentioned where just un-mapping the LUN on the SAN made things whacky when attempted to remove the datastore after.

The clean process I use is.

1. Make sure no data resides on the datastore using Storage Views or browsing the datastore.

2. Go to Datastores inventory view.  Right-click and select delete.

3. The datastore will be removed from one host and with 4.1 u1 all other hosts will automatically remove datastore and re-scan.

4. Delete LUN on SAN.