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danw76
Contributor
Contributor

How to setup an HDD for file storage

I've just setup a new server with the free version of ESXi 5.1 installed on a USB stick.  I have migrated my 10, Win7 VM's from Vmware Workstation to my 3 new HDD's on the ESXi host and have accessed these VM's through Vsphere Client.  Now I'd like to setup a separate 3TB HDD as a place to store files, that these VM's on the host, and my computer with Vsphere Client on (Win7 OS), will be able to access.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to get started with this?  I have installed my 3TB HDD on the server and can see it through Vsphere Client.  It is currently unpartitioned.

Thanks in advance.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

What you can do is to create a VMFS datastore on the disk using the "Add Storage" wizard and either add an additional virtual disk to one of the existing VMs or create a new VM and create a CIFS share on that VM. Remember that virtual disk can have a maximum size of 2,032GB in order to be able to create snapshots.

André

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danw76
Contributor
Contributor

Is it not possible to just allow the 10 VM's to directly see the 3TB HDD with the files on?  These 10 virtual machines would be in use by different users, but they will all want to have access to the same files.  One day User A, may want to work on File A - the next day User B may want to work on File A.  These users will want to access these centrally located files from their own personal VM.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Unfortunately not because Windows does not support simultaneous access to disks. Doing this would corrupt the files.

André

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danw76
Contributor
Contributor

Ok, thanks Andre.  So, once the 3TB drive has been formatted for VMFS, I could create a VM on that HDD with a CIFS share that would contain the files to be shared over the network?  Is this VM acting as a virtual HDD that the 10 VM's are able to access directly to open a file?  If this is the case, and considering I have roughly 2500GB of files to share, how big does this VM and the CIFS share need to be?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

What you need to do, is to create a virtual machine with virtual disks for the data, in the size you need. The VM can then be configured like a typical (physical) file server. Please keep in mind that virtual disks have a size limit (see my previous post) and you will need to create at least two virtual disks to take advantage of the diskspace on the datastore. Also leave some fee disk space for e.g. snapshots, logfiles, swapfiles, ... With the disk size you mentioned, I'd suggest to keep about 10%-15% free.

André

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danw76
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Thanks Andre, I'll give it a go.

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