Make datastores accesible by multiple VM's?

[jessyager]

I know that this has probably been discussed before but I cannot find anything that references this topic that seems to apply so I apologize in advance. I am running ESXi 5.5 with a Windows 7 64  VM on it. I want to eventually install a version of Linux on it as well. I do plan on using my server as a fileserver among other things but like having a machine I can play with multiple OS's on. I currently have a drive installed that I plan on using for the different VM's and I was attempting to install a secondary 1TB drive to use for storage. I can find how to add the datastore for the Win7 VM but I would like to attempt to add it so that later when I install the Linux VM it can access the files on it as well. Is this feasible? If so can anyone point me in the right direction with this? Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer.

[marksie1988]

‌hi jessyager

unfortunatly this is not possible, the way you are trying to do it windows and Linux use different file systems, you could use an NFS or iSCSI connectivity with something like freenas or similar.

IF you were to add the data store as an additional drive in VMware it would create a VMDK file that the respective cm would have access to. It's not possible to share this (other than through the OS itself)

i currently do something similar but use freenas installed on a VM with the large disk attached.

Hope this helps

[markdjones82]

You would need to create it as a VMFS datastore not present it directly to the Windows guest VM.  When you create the VMFS datastore you would just place for VM's running on top of that. Link below is how to create the datastore.

VMware vSphere 5.1

If you were wanting ot create a "file share" you could run a linux VM and create a VMDK with something like Freenas as stated above.

If you found this helpful please mark as helpful.

[jessyager]

Thanks for the help I will have to look into those methods a bit more. I imagine the first option would be the best as it sounds like the second would not work with multiple drives? I plan on adding more to the mix once I get it working with one drive. Again thank you for the help and I will see how it works.