VMware Cloud Community
btallon
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Migration of VMS from Local Datastore to Local Datastore

I have to move a few VMs from local storage on one ESX 3.5 Server to local storage on another. The customer I am working with has Vcenter but does not have Vmotion.

What would be the best way to perform the move.

Cold migration?

Import to new ESX server via Converter?

I tried to do an import with the VM turned off and after 30 minutes the progress was only at 5% . This server only took 25 minutes for P2V, should cold import from VI3 VM to VI3 VM take longer than P2V? This is an all Gigabit LAN environment.

When I tried to do the move via Migrate, the progress hung at 25% and never finished.

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

cold migration will work just fine. Shutdown the guest, right click choose migrate.

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
5 Replies
Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

cold migration will work just fine. Shutdown the guest, right click choose migrate.

Reply
0 Kudos
btallon
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Do you think the cold migration would take longer than the P2V of the same server? (considering identical LAN conditions).

Reply
0 Kudos
Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

I think cold migration will be quicker, but both solutions will get you to a resolution.

btallon
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thats what I was thinking, I will have to go back and make sure I dont have some other issue causing problems with my migration.

Thanks for the input.

Reply
0 Kudos
btallon
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Just a quick follow up with my results:

I used the import function because I needed to shrink one of the VMDKs during the process.

VMs were off, network is gigabit.

VM1 - Original VM had one 40GB and one 160GB VMDK associated with it.. 160GB was reduced to 100GB during the import.

Import duration was approx. 5 hours.

VM2 - Original VM had one 40GB and one 120GB VMDK.

Import duration was approx 10 hours.

Reply
0 Kudos