Copying VM from a local storage to SAN

[dctaylorit]

Hello all,

I've currently got a 2 esx ent. edition hosts connected to a SAN and one esx starter edition host using local storage. What I'm looking into doing right now is move one of the VMs off of the starter esx server over to the SAN to do some testing.

I tried to power down the VM last time and copy it to the SAN using Veeam FastSCP (www.veeam.com) as I have used it in the past doing this before and it has worked out awesome.

When copying the file its initial transfer rates are awesome around 375 MB/sec. It starts to drop significantly around 20 gigs worth of data transferred to the point that it isn’t really transferring anything. I’ve verified what Veeam was showing by using a network monitor.

At that point I stop the transfer. (I have let it run for about 5 hrs and there was no improvement). If I start the transfer back up right after canceling it the transfer rates are right backup at to where they should be.

I'm not able to directly access the SAN as the starter edition license doesn't allow me to access it. And I can't copy the files over to a NFS shsare (tried and it hits the 2GB NTFS file limit). I'm not sure what else I can do.

I'd like to get this done as soon as possible so I could start getting this testing done and roll it into development.

If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for all your help,

Joe

[Rumple]

Do you have VC 2 managing your servers? you could use vmware converter to do the migration for you. I just did that to move an ESX 2 system to Virtual Server 1.3

I ended up downloading the trial of VC to accomplish what I needed...

Another option is to try and get a trial of Ranger and do a backup/restore...

[mfredericks · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

A couple of ideas:

1) You could use the free VMWare converter installed inside of your guest to V2V the VM to another host (and chose the SAN data store). Since this is for testing, there should be no concerns about data integrity of the running VM. Even if it was for production you're probably still OK using this method under most scenarios.

2) Are you running virtual center? You should be able to migrate the VM from one host to another and choose the relocate storage option.

3) I would imagine you could register for a trial ESX license which would allow you to access the SAN. I'm not sure how vmware looks at this since you're not really using the license for its intended purpose.

Option 2, along with your SCP copy would use the service console NIC. Have you verified that this NIC has the correct speed and duplex? This would severely impact speed and reliabity of transfers.

Running converter inside of a guest would use the VM network NIC(s) so you might be able to overcome some issue you're having with the service console NIC.

Good luck,

Mike

[mfredericks]

Wow, rumple posted much of what I said before I had a chance to finish typing. Sorry for some duplication

Good suggestion on the ranger backup/restore. You could also use esXpress for this purpose. esXpress could again get you around a service console NIC issue since it uses virtual backup appliances that (can) use the VM network.

[Rumple]

well..least we are on the same page...

[acr]

Agreed, VC or Converter are good ways to move VM's..

[RParker]

The best way is it use vmkfstools, from the Local ESX host.

If that machine is directly attached VIA fibre, you can use this tool to clone it on the SAN, and when its finished, delete the original. That's how I would do it.

But, since your options are limited, you an use VM Ware Converter, that's the best solution for you.

[acr]

agree here too, which is basically what VC does under then bonnet...

[dctaylorit]

Thank you all for a quick response. I'm going to try the VMware converter this weekend. I was playing around with if for a bit today and I think that this is going to work perfectly.

I'll let you know how everything goes.

Thanks to everyone again.

Joe