SAN question

[adamhodgkins]

Hi all,

I am wondering if there is any way to add a 6TB volume on a SAN into VMWare for one machine to use in vSphere? I am aware that for datastores the limit is 2TB but we need to be able to add more than this.

Thanks

Adam

[vmroyale]

Hello.

The LUN limit is 2TB- 512 bytes, but you can use extents and have a VMFS volume up to 64 TB.

Good Luck!

[adamhodgkins]

Hi,

Thanks for the info! I've not heard of 'extents' before, how is this set up?

Thanks

Adam

[vmroyale]

Check out p.112 of the "[ESX Configuration Guide|http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esx_server_config.pdf]" for the procedure.

[adamhodgkins]

Brilliant! thanks for your help!

[ThompsG]

Before you jump too high with excitement be aware the largest VMDK you can create is 2TB.

[adamhodgkins]

Hi,

How come there is still the 2TB limit if I will be able to create up to a 64TB volume?

Thanks

Adam

[ThompsG]

Hi there,

Here is the why: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=337173... One thing to note is the RDM limit as it appears you can present larger than 2TB to the guest but is unsupported. I had always believed that the 2TB was non-negotiable.

This is also a good read: http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/03/vmfs-best-practices-and-counter-fud.html

Also here is the maximums for 4.1: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf

As you can see from page 1 the maximum disk is 2TB-512b for a virtual machine. I do agree it does seem a little weird to be able to have a massive data store but still be limited in the size of the VMDK. I've often got around this with using mount points in the guest OS.

Kind regards,

Glen

[idle-jam]

You can add multiple disk to the virtual machine. and from there you will need to pick up and creating dynamic disk and spanning it. also you will need to make sure that you operating system can support such large number of space in a single drive or mountpoint.

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

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