Maximum storage for datastore?

[zzit123]

Hello,

   I have a server setup with one 2TB harddrive set to mirror with Raid 1. I have installed hypervisor on it with no problems. When I go to setup a virtual machine, I cannot set the main virtual C drive beyond 256GB or 0.25TB. Any reasons why this is happening?

The drives are SATA.

Thank you in advance for your input.

[schepp · Accepted solution]

Hello,

because you formatted your VMFS Datastore with a blocksize of 1MB, which will result in a maximum Filesize of 256GB.

Reformat your VMFS with a larger Blocksize.

See:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100356...

Regards

[idle-jam]

as above you will need to format the datastore with 8MB block size to enjoy such large vmdk.

[_vbb]

Hi,

I have similar situation.

ESX version : ESXi 5.0.0 , 623860

Datastore :  1.2 TB iscsi LUN mounted as datastore. VMFS 3.54 with Block size 8 MB.

I am tring to add 1 TB harddisk a virtual machine. During Add hardware wizard, max size of harddisk i can create is 256 GB or 0.25 TB. ( even though block size for vmfs is 8 MB.

Any ideas?

thanks in advance.

[aagredo]

I know this is old post, but I add my ideas, I think this is because you are using VMFS 3.54, ? even  with Block size 8 MB. see what I found:

(by the way  I am using VMFS-5 on ma datastorage, (Esxi 5.1) and I can add  hard drives of 500GB to my virtual machines  with no problem.)

VMFS-5 Size Limitations

With VMFS-5, we use a unified 1 MB block size which is no longer configurable, but we can address larger files than a VMFS-3 1 MB block size can due to enhancements to the VMFS file system. Therefore a 1 MB VMFS-3 block size is not the same as a 1 MB VMFS-5 block size regarding file sizes.

The limits that apply to VMFS-5 datastores are:

• The maximum virtual disk (VMDK) size is 2 TB minus 512 B.
  
• The maximum virtual-mode RDM size is 2 TB minus 512 B.
  
• Physical-mode RDMs are supported up to 64 TB.
  

In VMFS-5, very small files (that is, files smaller than 1 KB) will be stored in the file descriptor location in the metadata rather than using file blocks. Once the file size increases beyond 1 KB, sub-blocks are used. After one 8 KB sub-block is used, 1 MB file blocks are used. As VMFS-5 uses sub-blocks of 8 KB rather than 64 KB (as in VMFS-3), this reduces the amount of disk space being used by small files. For more information on VMFS-5, see vSphere 5 FAQ: VMFS-5 (2003813).

source: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100356...

VMFS5. VMFS5 is a new version of vSphere Virtual Machine File System that offers improved scalability and performance, and provides internationalization support. With VMFS5, you can create a 64TB datastore on a single extent. RDMs in physical compatibility mode with the size larger than 2TB can now be presented to a virtual machine. In addition, on SAN storage hardware that supports vStorage APIs - Array Integration (also known as VAAI), ESXi 5.0 uses the atomic test and set (ATS) locking mechanism for VMFS5 datastores. Using this mechanism can improve performance, although the degree of improvement depends on the underlying storage hardware.

source: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r50/vsphere-50-configuration-maximums.pdf