More than 2TB in a virtual disk

[amedinaj]

Hi all,

I'm planning virtualize a Mail server, this mail server storage all users's mail and the users syncronize their mail client software with this server. This mail server is running in Linux (debian). I want to create a vdisk for the OS and other one for the mail storage, it is possible that in the future the mail storage grow up more than 2TB, but I only can create vdisk up to 2TB. In this case, what would you recommend to me? create another vdisk when needed and then extend the partition in the guest OS to the new vdisk?

Thanks and best regards,

Alberto Medina

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

The 2 TB limit on a VMDK file still holds in vSphere 5 - Your options are to provide multiple 2 TB disks to the VM and let the OS span across all disk, use a software iSCSI intiator from within the OS and let OS access the storage directly or if you are using vSphere 5 present an RDM to the VM where it can present a disk of uo to 64 TB

[a_p_]

Currently the maximum size for a virtual disk is still 2TB minus 512 bytes. If you want to go with virtual disks then the only option is to leverage features of the guest OS to e.g. span multiple disks or - if possible - configure the mail server to split the data and place it on different disks.

With ESXi 5.0, VMware now allows larger LUNs. Currently only RDMs in physical (pass-trough) mode are supported to have larger sizes (up to 64TB),. However, personally I expect to see the option to have larger virtual disks too in the near future.

André

[amedinaj]

Thanks for your replies. I think the better option for me is span  in the OS to various vdisk as you suggest.

Thank you very much!