partition before ESXi 5.0 installation, is it possible ?

[apapap]

I have a desktop class machine with 4GB RAM and 500GB blank HDD and i want to install ESXi 5.0. But i want to create partitions(say 3 or 2) and on 1 of those partitions i would like to install the ESXi host, is this possible and if yes how can such partition be created… ??????

Please Help.
Thanks in advance

[Dave_Mishchenko]

The ESXi installer by default will want to repartition the entire disk.  What's your purpose for wanting to install ESXi?  If you're setting up a training (for ESXi) environment you could run ESXi as a VM (depending on the hardware you have).

If you just need to run a few VMs every once in a while, you could boot ESXi from a flash device and then format the empty partition as a datastore.

[apapap]

I have a different machine which runs ESXi server on it. I want the ESXi to be installed on a partition because i want to use the free space for creation of datastores. The scenario as such : when we install ESXi on a machine it uses the available space i.e. whole disk and creates a single datastore and then there is no space left for creation of another datastore. And if another datastore is to be created additional external HDD adding is a solution but i want to avoid adding more storage.

So, do let me know if this problem can have or has a solution

Thanks and Regards,
AP

[a_p_]

... when we install ESXi on a machine it uses the available space i.e. whole  disk and creates a single datastore and then there is no space left for  creation of another datastore.

That's correct. ESXi uses the whole installation disk and creates multiple partitions on it including the VMFS partition.

And if another datastore is to be  created additional external HDD adding is a solution but i want to avoid  adding more storage.

Can you explain this. If you don't add additional storage (i.e. additional disks/LUNs), how would you be able to add an additional datastore? Btw VMware supports only one VMFS datastore on a disk/LUN.

André

[tjn]

The only way I know about, would be using a disk controller that is smart enough to show the single physical drive as several smaller disks. Then install ESXi on one of them, and use the rest for whichever purpose you want.

At least 3ware controllers can do that. Unfortunately they dropped the ESXi 5 drivers shortly after releasing them, I'm eager to see the drivers re-appear. But I believe other LSI cards can do that too, and probably Areca etc...

Regards,

Timo

[JeanFlorentine]

Hi Dave ,

following your advice, i have installed the ESXI5.1 on a 2GB MicroSD memeory,

but how do manage to create a DataStore on the 2nd partition of a 2TB disk

which first partition is Win7 boot.

When starting the vSphere client, it finds out there is no Datastore, and start the wizard to create one,

but this wizard can only use the all 2TB disk , smashing the 2 existing partitions.

Is it possible to create a datastore on the 2nd partition only using command lines on the ESXI console ?

thanks

Jean

[RvdNieuwendijk]

Discussion moved from Community Website Help to VMware ESXi 5.