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Chevounet
Contributor
Contributor

move a virtual disk from a datastore to an other datastore with ESX3.0

Hello,

In a VMware ESX3.0 server, I have a virtual machine with a disk system and a data disk on the datastore "storage_ide". I would like to move the data disk of the virtual machine from the datastore "storage_ide" to the datastore "storage_data" but I musn't lose any data.

It is possible ? how can I do ?

Thanks

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9 Replies
andy_mac
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Do you have virtualcenter?

How comfortable with Linux are you?

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Chevounet
Contributor
Contributor

No, I don't have virtual center but I have only one server.

About Linux, I'm not really good. :s But I can try

There is the vmkfstools command but I don't really know how to use it.

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frisbyvlieger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Since I lack the knowledge of Linux I can't explain. Sometimes I did have to move stuff in my ESX server too though, there is a handy application for that.

You can download WinSCP from here, once you installed it the rest is simple. Just login into your ESX server with WinSCP using your root account. Once logged in, browse through your ESX server and find the file you want to move.

Backing up your stuff before moving etc. is important as always. Good Luck!

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Chevounet
Contributor
Contributor

yes but this application is just to move the file and no virtual disk no ?

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frisbyvlieger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I haven't moved a virtual disk this way with WinSCP but in theory it should be possible. I could be wrong here but I don't think so. If I had my own VDI before me I would have tried but I don't got access to it at the moment. I'd say just try it out, but instead of moving your virtual disk, copy it to your new location. Test if it works afterwards.

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Chevounet
Contributor
Contributor

but WinSCP copy is a sftp to copy files of a computer to an other, but here, the disk is not created. The problem is here. I want a disk of a virtual machine to be transfert form a datastore to an other.

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andy_mac
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

A virtual machine's disk is a file - .vmdk

Copy it with winscp. You are probably best to de-register the VM before copying it and then re-registering it once it has been copied.

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frisbyvlieger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

In your first post you said you had only one server right? and now you want to copy a virtual disk to another datastore, but that means you got 2 datastores on one server. Than you should be able to copy the .vmdk file to another datastore with winSCP.

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azn2kew
Champion
Champion

You can do this with WinSCP, VeeamFastSCP or even great backup and restore utility called "VISBU" you can google and download it. Basically, you just move all of your VMs folder source datastore to destination datastore using any of those application above. The fastest one is Veeam if you have large .vmdk files to move.

Once you moved the VMs folder to the new datastore, all you do is go to configuration->storage->browse datastore->and find your vmservername.vmx and right click on it to "add to inventory" to register it or use "vmware-cmd" to register your vm.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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