Is it possible to use Storage Vmotion tool with both VMFS and virtual RDM's?

[swedsak]

Hi !

Can you use the Storage Vmotion tool to move a server running with both VMFS drives and virtual RDM disk drives inside?

Both SAN's are EMC and can be reached from Vmware ESX and Virtual Center.

Thank you!

[Lightbulb]

To my understanding no, Storage Vmotion will ignore RDMs. You could unmap RDMs cold migrate and then remap RDMs, but I assume you already know this.

[swedsak]

No this kind of information what was i was looking for.

So there is no way to migrate RDM inside vmware?

[Lightbulb]

Well vmotion will work fine if the RDM is in Virtual compatibility mode, but Storage Vmotion does not work with RDMs.

[Texiwill]

Hello

So there is no way to migrate RDM inside vmware?

Not using VMware provided tools. You would create the new RDM on the new location, then using Guest OS tools copy the data from one RDM to the other.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
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[swedsak]

Hi !

Could i use vmware converter to go from RDM to vmfs volume(s)?

Im trying to minimize downtime.

[swedsak]

Hi !

You mean i could vmotion over the whole server from my old SAN to the new SAN ?

[Lightbulb · Accepted solution]

To get the storage on the new SAN both hosts will have to have access to the storage. You can then you copuld cold migrate the VM. First you will need to shutdown the VM and remove RDM mapping. Once VM is on new datastore recreate RDM mapping (Bothe hosts will need access to backend LUN).