No storage vmotion with ESXi 6.5 Host Client?

[ThePhantom79]

Hi,

I am using ESXi 6.5 as a standalone server on a HPE Microserver Gen8 (without vcenter) - just with the host client.

I am still in the evaluation mode, so all licenses should be there.

I am trying now to move a VM from one data store to another one. It is not possible to use storage vmotion without a vcenter? I am not able to find any option like this. Is there any other hint to do that storage vmotion ( do not have to be an online storage vmotion) - I will need it often.

I also power down the machine and try to move the folder manually from one data store to the other, but this takes a HUGE amount of time (hours for 15 GB).

Thanks for your helpl

regards

Chris

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

features like Storage vMotion require vCenter Server, which is also available for evaluation.

Anyway, if you want to move a VM to another datastore without vCenter Server, you can either use a backup/restore, or export/import approach, or copy the files manually using the right tools. For virtual disks you should use the vmkfstools command line utility. Other files can be copied using e.g. the cp command.

Sample: vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/VM-Name/VM-Name.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/VM-Name/VM-Name.vmdk

Make sure that the target folder already exists, and - in case the VM has active snapshots - that you specify the current snapshot as the source .vmdk file. The mentioned command has options to specify the target format, i.e. thin or thick.

André

PS: Fixed typo. Thanks TheBobkin​

[TheBobkin]

Hello,

You could test if cloning the disks to the new destination might be faster:

Via SSH session connected to the host, make a target namespace folder:

# mkdir /vmfs/volumes/TargetDatastore/NewVMName/

Clone the disks of the VM to the new location (this example is thin provisioned and default contoller type):

# vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/OriginalDatastore/OldVMName/OldVMName.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/TargetDatastore/NewVMName/NewVMName.vmdk -d thin

kb.vmware.com/kb/1027876

You can easily check how fast this is cloning by checking the size at destination using du command.

Bob

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[TheBobkin]

a.p.​ "/vmfs/volums/"

You should fix that  :smileysilly:

[hypervisorboy]

Hi Chris,

Storage VMotion means you can migrate a virtual machine and its disk files from one datastore to another while the virtual machine is running.

You can't do storage VMotion without VCenter.

yes, you can migrate VM from one datastore to another datastore but that is not storage Vmotion because we are turning off the VM's for migration.

You can read this article to migrate VM without VCenter but that's not Storage VMotion: - How to move a VM without vCenter

Time taken in storage VMotion can be 24 hours, it depends on the network speed, the size of VM because in storage VMotion we are migrating whole storage from one datastore to another.

Please let me know if it helps you, Chris!

[devzero]

does that mean that you need to spend 3909,58 € for a vsphere enterprise license and  8647,09 € for a vcenter license ( 12556,09 € alltogether)  to get something which you can have for free with kvm ? really ?

root@proxmox1:~# qm move_disk 106 ide0 vms-prod-replicated

create full clone of drive ide0 (vms-testing1:106/vm-106-disk-0.qcow2)
Formatting '/rpool/vms-prod-replicated/images/106/vm-106-disk-0.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 size=1073741824 cluster_size=65536 preallocation=metadata lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16
drive mirror is starting for drive-ide0
drive-ide0: transferred: 0 bytes remaining: 1073741824 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 0.00 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 299892736 bytes remaining: 773849088 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 27.93 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 558891008 bytes remaining: 514850816 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 52.05 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 917504000 bytes remaining: 156237824 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 85.45 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 1073741824 bytes remaining: 0 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 100.00 % busy: 0 ready: 1
all mirroring jobs are ready
drive-ide0: Completing block job...
drive-ide0: Completed successfully.
drive-ide0 : finished

root@proxmox1:~# qm move_disk 106 ide0 vms-testing1
create full clone of drive ide0 (vms-prod-replicated:106/vm-106-disk-0.qcow2)
Formatting '/rpool/vms-testing1/images/106/vm-106-disk-1.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 size=1073741824 cluster_size=65536 preallocation=metadata lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16
drive mirror is starting for drive-ide0
drive-ide0: transferred: 0 bytes remaining: 1073741824 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 0.00 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 318767104 bytes remaining: 754974720 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 29.69 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 774897664 bytes remaining: 298844160 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 72.17 % busy: 1 ready: 0
drive-ide0: transferred: 1073741824 bytes remaining: 0 bytes total: 1073741824 bytes progression: 100.00 % busy: 0 ready: 1
all mirroring jobs are ready
drive-ide0: Completing block job...
drive-ide0: Completed successfully.
drive-ide0 : finished

[ThompsG]

Storage vMotion now available with ESXi Standard but yes, something that needs to be paid for. Obviously you are getting more than just this one feature however if it is the only feature you want (need) then its expensive.

If you think that is bad then you should try licensing when you are a global company and are trying to centralise your management/licenses