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breakaway9000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Splitting 2 partitions on a single VMDK to 2 VMDKs

Hi All

Due to a configuration oversight when creating the VMs, I have inherited four Server 2012 VMs which have a Single vDISK which in turn contains a C: drive (OS) and 😧 drive (Data/Files). The first 80GB is the C: drive, the remaining XX TB is the 😧 drive.

For ease of future managibility, I want to split these two partitions into individual vDisks.

The VMs (vDisks) are thin provisioned and reside on a Starwind iSCSI LUN.

What is the easiest way to do this?

My end goal is the following:
1. Split C: into vDisk 1

2. Split 😧 into vDisk 2

3. Reclaim any unused space (Thin provisioning)

At first, I was going to treat the vms like any other system (make a backup with shadowprotect or similar, then restore C: into the first vDisk, and 😧 onto the second), but is there a better, faster way to do this?

Any help appreciated.

10 Replies
Lessi001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

yes, there is a fast way - use VMware Converter.

Open VMware Converter  and select "convert machine". Click through the wizzard till you see the task "Options".

There is a setting called "Data to copy" - change "Data copy type" to "Select volumes to copy" and you can configure the VM as you want.

Regards

Andreas

There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
breakaway9000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi, thanks for your reply.

So how long will this take? Is it fast because it just splits the disk or will it still need to copy the contents of the partitions?

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Lessi001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It depends on the disksize as it is still necessary to move the data to the new vdisks.

But it is fast, because as long as you do not change the size of the disks, VMware Converter will do a block level copy.

Regards

There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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rvopat
Contributor
Contributor

It does not appear that the original poster has responded, but i have tried this and it DOES NOT work, i am using converter 5.1 and it does not split them into 2 separate disks, it just grows the original vmdk.

If anyone has any insight it would be greatly appreciated.

I am trying this on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 machine and it is not working.

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Lessi001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

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There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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paradise1967
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Run Converter and select the system to convert.

Destination System > Data to Copy > Advanced > Destination layout

Click Add Disk

Select the partition you wish to move

Click the Move down | Move up buttons to move the partition to the new disk

Hope this helps

Kevin

Lessi001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

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Ihr Mail wurde nicht weitergeleitet. In dringenden Fällen wenden Sie sich bitte an Hr. Pointner (w.pointner@3beg.at<mailto:m.hoedl@3beg.at>) bzw. Hr. Koerner (e.koerner@3beg.at<mailto:e.koerner@3beg.at>).

There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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rvopat
Contributor
Contributor

Yes that seemed to work paradise1967, thank you.

I seem to be having a problem with that disk still though, it said that it created a new VMDK and when i copy data off of it either to another drive local to the vm or to another network machine data copy is painfully slow.  i was hoping a new VMDK would have fixed that, but does not seem to have.

any ideas on other things to try?

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Lessi001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ich bin wieder ab 2. September im Büro.

Ihr Mail wurde nicht weitergeleitet. In dringenden Fällen wenden Sie sich bitte an Hr. Pointner (w.pointner@3beg.at<mailto:m.hoedl@3beg.at>) bzw. Hr. Koerner (e.koerner@3beg.at<mailto:e.koerner@3beg.at>).

There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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szilagyic
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

paradise1967 wrote:

Run Converter and select the system to convert.

Destination System > Data to Copy > Advanced > Destination layout

Click Add Disk

Select the partition you wish to move

Click the Move down | Move up buttons to move the partition to the new disk

Hope this helps

Kevin

FYI, this only works with non-system partitions.  It will not let you move a system partition (the "move up" and "move down" buttons are grayed out).  Thank you for posting this.