Can't Power on VM After Storage VMotion

[bbarnes]

I'm using the snap in to the VI client to do some storage vmotion where I can better utilize our space on our arrays. I have one particular vm that I moved the storage around that has a total of 3 vmdks, all on seperate LUNs. Once I got them all moved around to the correct place, where I wanted them, I cannot power on the VM because it says there is no space left on device. I'm trying to boot the machine with 4GB of memory, the boot LUN has over 400GB free on it. The other two LUNs have 225MB and 192MB free. I can only boot the machine if I change the memory to 192MB or less. I know the issues with swapfile and memory overhead, but this VM has always run with those two LUNs having that little space. I can only assume it is in someway related to the storage vmotion. The swapfile is set to store with the virtual machine and I'm still having the problem. Need some help.

[azn2kew]

What happen if you test to move some VMs from low space LUNs to 400GB free LUNs to balance it out and try to boot up again if its really disk space issue? Can you manage to move all 3 vmdks to the same LUN that has 400GB that's easier. It might be issues with swapfiles complaining not enough storage to accomodate it.

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[dominic7]

The amount of disk space that you need for the VM is ( physical RAM allocated to VM - memory reservation ). You can create a memory reservation of 4G and you won't need to have any disk space. The downside is that you've now comitted 4G of RAM to the VM so you won't see any savings from transparent page savings (TPS) or be able to use the baloon driver to scrape unused memory from the VM.

[Erik_Zandboer]

Make sure where your configfile is. Using storage vmotion, you can actually put the boot drive on another LUN than the config of the VM. The 4GB of swapfile is created at the location of the config, not the bootdisk (although most of the time these are the same)

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[bbarnes]

Ok, somehow my vswp file got put on one of the LUNs that has no extra space, but my config file is sitting with the boot LUN just like it's supposed to. Is there a clean way to move that vswp file...or I'll take any way to move it at all at this point.

[timparkinsonShe · Accepted solution]

Either storage vmotion the VMX file to the LUN with most space (easiest) or manually add a config parameter (Edit Settings, Options, General, Configuration Parameters) sched.swap.dir =/vmfs/volumes/DS/Machine

(where DS and Machine relate to your environment) .

[bbarnes]

That's what is so weird, the vmx file is already in the LUN with plenty of overhead...for some reason, my vswp file didn't follow the vmx file.

[timparkinsonShe]

That is odd. What does the sched.swap.derivedName (from the config params) say? It should have the swap location as of the last boot.

[bbarnes]

I was able to force it to the right place by using the advanced config parameter within the vm as tim suggested. Points awarded.

[timparkinsonShe]

Thanks,

I actually use this parameter to force swap into a separate volume on our SAN that isn't subject to snapshots -no point having transient data taking up disk space and making mirror operations more expensive.

Cheers,

Tim