How to get Converter to break up vmdk files

[RJacob]

Here is the dilemma... I have a stand alone virtual machine (from a vendor) that has a 320 GB virtual disk... however when I try to run converter to push it up to an ESX 3.0.2 host... it complains because my VMFS-3 block size is set to 1MB... which limits the size to 256GB...

Question is... can I get converter to create a virtual disk using multiple vmdk files (so the first one would be 256 GB, and the second would be the rest of the 320GB size)

I hate the idea of pulling off all the VMs I have on the system... just to reformat the VMFS to 8MB block size.

[dominic7]

Do you need the VM to be 320GiB? You can use converter to shrink the VM under 256GiB as it moves it over.

[RJacob]

The VM disk must be 320 GB...

I think what we're going to do... is present another LUN and create a new datastore and format it with 8MB block size...

But I'd like to know if there is another way.

[admin]

Hello,

You can't split a VMDK by using Converter when importing to ESX. ESX 3.0.2 do not support splited VMDK file. But if you have many partitions on your 320GB VMDK, you can use specific VMDK file for each volume (partition) of your VM.

[Wimo]

When I have a really big drive on a server to be P2Ved, I usually create a vmdk file that size, attach it to an existing VM (or create a new VM, boot it with a boot CD such as BartPE/UltimateP2V), and robocopy it. This is mainly to save time, nothing to do with the problem you are having. Robo the day before the conversion, then on the big day, stop whatever services on the source server might be accessing that drive, and do it again.

After converting the C drive, you can either import the big drive into that VM's directory, or just have the big drive in a directory of its own.

After rereading your post, it is not a P2V, it is a migration/upgrade you are talking about - same idea would still work, but you could also just create a new VM with no disks, ftp the files from the source server, then upgrade hardware. Or at least, I think you could - I've never done that with a disk file that big.