Cloning Virtual Disk in ESX 3.5 Std

[MRP-VM]

Our vendor is telling us that Disk Cloning is available on Enterprise Edition of ESX 3.5. Not sure if its true. If ever, how can I clone a specific Virtual Hard Disk if I already created a Template disk (Windows 2003 Server disk for example)?

[weinstein5]

cloning is really a feature of Virtual Center - so you will need VC to be able to clone a vm - independent of you have a standard license or enterprise license of ESX because both have the VC licnese needed to manage that host with VC -

[alanrenouf]

You should just be able to copy the hard disk file (vmdk) and attach it to another machine.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for Correct or Helpful.

Alan Renouf

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

UK

[MRP-VM]

Hi Weinstein,

Virtual Center is a free license? Can you post link where I can download Virtual Center?

[weinstein5]

no - there ia license associated with virtual center - vc allows you to manage mutliple esx hosts and their vms - it is also through VC where you can do vmotion, vmware drs and vmware HA - here is alink to more informaiton - - there is link to where you can download anevaluation copy -

[MRP-VM]

This is the practice that I am doing. I copy virtual harddisk and make it as my template. But I wanted to know the best practice that this community may suggest.

[caciolli]

No, it is not free.

Anyway you can test it for 60 days after that the demo will expire.

To clone disks without VCMS, use vmkfstools , a command line utility for managing file system and virtual disks inside your host.