Expanding VMFS3 volumes

[Newbie1]

Is was wondering if i have a LUN of 250GB and make this LUN 500GB, is it possible to make a second VMFS3 datastore on that same LUN. In the older version you could do this but i'm not sure if this also works for VI-3

Newbie

[acr]

With VI3 you can add VMFS Partition together, these are now called extents.. Still not really best practice though, although better than the previous version..

Todate though you cant extend a VMFS Partition, simply add extents (other VMFS) to appear as a larger VMFS partition..

[ThompsG]

Hi there,

The only way you can do this in Vi3 is too make a second LUN of 250GB and add it as an extent to the first LUN. Not a pleasant sight, but nicer than under ESX 2 with extents.

If you increase the 250GB LUN to 500GB you will just have unallocated space that you cannot format, at least not through the Vi Client.

Kind regards,

Glen

PS: We went down this path as our initial plan was to have 250GB LUNs which the storage people would increase as needed. We have just decided to make 1TB LUNs the default.

[admin]

Extents are usually not best practice and should be used as temporary solutions until data can be migrated. I believe what you are describing is not an extent if you are merely extending a LUN and adding a second VMFS partition. This would definately not be recommended due to the type of scsi reservations at the LUN level which are used by VMFS. Best practice is 1 VMFS per LUN.