Aligning a local VMFS partition during a scripted ESX Install

[DrSpook]

I'm using an install script cobbled together from numerous VMTN forum posts, RTFM Education & others to install my ESX 3.0.2. servers (thanks all )

After creating the main partitions I need on the local disk (Dell PERC 5 RAID1) I assign the remaining space to a VMFS partition at the end of the drive using fdisk etc.

From http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_partition_align.pdf my VMFS partition will probably be mis-aligned. I'd like to update the script to align it but don't know what block number to start the partition on).

I suppose I could create a VMFS volume using VC 2.0.2, note the starting block number & inject that into the script, but is there a better way?

\[The guest OS partition alignment section in that doc was not mentioned in the VI3 Install & Config course. Time to update all my templates before i deploy any more misaligned machines...]

Cheers,

DrS

[BUGCHK]

It is my understanding that alignment is done on the first primary partition, only.

Your VMFS on the local disk most likely lives in a logical partition inside an extended partition. I have not heard that one can do alignments there, too - but I'm willing to learn ...

[RParker]

I did it, and the way you do it is to LEAVE the local VMFS partition once you get to VI.

So your configure the server, don't format/create the local EXT3, and you set that up later as local storage via the VI, then you have the option to set the block size.

Then follow these steps to setup/configure VMFS on local storage.

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=738420&#738420

[DrSpook]

That post describes using FDISK to create the VMFS partition, which is exactly what i did (see code snippet below).

I'm not going to worry about it after all -anything on the local storage won't be production (we're not using MSCS) so if it does suffer a bit of a performance hit then so be it.

I always use VI to create SAN LUNs, but they're iSCSI so alignment isn't as much of an issue according to the white paper.

Thanks for the responses....

DrS

fdisk /dev/sda <<EOF1

n

10

t

10

fb

w

quit

EOF1

[DrSpook]

abandoned really, unless anyone has any better ideas