best way to reclaim space

[huwy]

hi there,

I have an ESXi server with a 1TB drive. On this server is a VM with 2 partitions (c=250GB and d=750GB) - i.e. they are part of 1 vmdk. They are thin provisioned.

I would like to move 500GB of data off the VM onto a new VM on the same ESXi server.

I am struggling to come up with a way to do this? Is there anyway to split off the partitions into separate vmdk's? I could then attach the vmdk directly to the other VM. Alternatively I have another ESXi server that I could use for the migration. There is no virtual center server unfortunately.

Cheers for any assistance on this,

-Huw

[arturka]

I would like to move 500GB of data off the VM onto a new VM on the same ESXi server.

I am struggling to come up with a way to do this? Is there anyway to split off the partitions into separate vmdk's? I could then attach the vmdk directly to the other VM. Alternatively I have another ESXi server that I could use for the migration. There is no virtual center server unfortunately.

Hi

If you have another ESXi server and enough space to do V2V do like that:

VM1 (source VM)

ESXi1
ESXi2

Assumptions:

• ESXi2 has enough space to get VM1
• you can't add new disk to ESXi1

1. use VMware converter 4.3 standalone version and do V2V for VM1 from ESXi1 to ESXi2, during migration job configuration in disk layout split partitions to separate VMDK disks ( you can also do resizing of that VMDK if you want)
2. check if VM1-new works well after V2V
3. remove source VM1 from old ESXi
4. detached 750GB VMDK rom VM1-new
5. do V2V of VM1-new from ESXi2 to ESXi1
6. start VM1-new on ESXi1
7. Create VM2 on ESXi1
8. Copy 750GB VMDK from ESXi2 to ESXi1
9. Attach 750GB to VM2

Good Luck

Cheers
Artur

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Message was edited by: arturka