Expanding VMFS datastore

[jitendrakmr]

Hello Everyone,

I am running out of space on a LUN holding VMFS datastore on which 8 VMs are already running. I need to get more space on this same LUN because I dont want to use extents to add more space on existing datastore. I am planning to ask storage team in my company to add more space on existing LUN; so once this is done then is there any way I can expand the existing VMFS datastore to assign the increased space?

Thanks.

Jitendra Kumar

MCSE 2003, VCP, CCNA, ITIL Foundation

[mittim12 · Accepted solution]

I think your only options are going to be the use of an extent or deleting the datastore and recreating it once the LUN has been expanded. If this is shared storage you could easily move the VM's with storage motion if you have temporary capacity on another LUN.

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[rpartmann]

Hi,

as far as i know is there no way to expand the VMFS volume without extensions.

You could backup your vm´s and reformat the increased LUN and then restore your vm´s.

kind regards,

Reinhard.

ps: Award points if you find answers helpful. Thanks.

[kjb007]

mittim12 is correct. You can not expand an existing VMFS volumes by extending the LUN underneath. Your only option is to use an extent to increase the datastore size, but the LUN itself can not be modified.

-KjB

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Not that it can not be modified, you can, but the only way to do it would be to add a second partition, you would then have to add that partition to the VMFS as an extent. Note that locking in ESX locks the entire LUN or LUNs conntected to the VMFS, so if the extent is part of the VMFS already on the LUN it will get locked with it which is fine. That would be the only way to increase the size without destroying and recreating...

But even so I would not do this. I would either create a second LUN and therefore second VMFS. Or recreate the LUN. Remember, more LUNs are better than 1 giant LUN. You get less SCSI Reservation conflicts with more LUNs generally.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

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Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization