Small Lab VFMS Sizing Issue

[pongor]

Hi all, so I am trying to teach myself about VMWare vSphere. I managed to download the vSphere 7.0.2 installation trial. My host computer running Windows 10 with VMWare Workstation 16 installed. I am trying to install vSphere as a VM in Workstation. My computer has a small hard drive 250 GB with approximately 110 GB used. I wanted to give vSphere between 80-100 GB so I could install at least 2 hosts.

When I try to create a datastore, all of the space is used up by VMFS-L and I can't create a datastore. I researched the issue and came across the fix during installation boot, setting the autoPartitionOSDataSize=xxxx. However, when I hold Shift+O during the initial installation boot nothing happens. I cannot enter the boot options. Once installed I have no issues but I don't believe I can fix my installation at that point.

This has become very frustrating. I thought about going back to an earlier version but for some reason the VMWare website does not allow me to register for an earlier version trial. The screen just flickers and nothing happens. I have tried it in Chrome and Edge and no joy.

Has anyone install 7.0.2 into a VM Workstation successfully? Does anyone know another way I could fix the issue. I am a novice to the OS.

Thanks  

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

You could of course go with the boot option to reduce the ESXi footprint, but why hassle with this in a virtual machine?
Simply create the ESXi VM with either a larger virtual disk (VMware Workstation VMs - by default - only consume the required host disk space), or setup the ESXi VM with two virtual disks, one for the ESXi installation (e.g. 40 GB), and one for a VMFS datastore.

>>> However, when I hold Shift+O during the initial installation boot nothing happens ...
Make sure you click into the VMs console screen first to set the focus on it.

André

[pongor]

Hi Andre,

Thank you for your help. Firstly, I am an idiot, I was not clicking into the VM window when I was trying to get to the boot. Secondly, I used the systemMedicaSize solution to resolve the problem. Being a novice with VMWare, I had not realized I could create a much larger virtual disk and resolve the issue that way. I may try that at a future date. Again thank you for the help.