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Khue
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Resizing Disks

I am currently working on a P2V project and I have a stand alone 3.5 ESX server that I am migrating to. For space reasons I was trying to figure out if there is a way I can resize the partitions with data on them to conserve space. The servers have 12 gig OS partitions and 137 gig data partitions. The data partitions store the "Program Files" directory and at most there is only 4 gigs of data on the data partition out of the 137 gigs available. I want to resize the data partitions to 10 gigs while keeping the data in tact. Are there any VMware tools to accomplish this? I don't have any 3rd party tools available like partition magic.

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Khue
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Never mind, VMware Converter has a disk size option that I just noticed.

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Vodder
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I was just writing you a message to say try Vmware converter which will do want you need before IE crashed! Though you'll need the fully licensed enterprise version for full functionality

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Khue
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yeah, I had a beta that didn't need the enterprise license and then I

accidentally upgraded it and lost some functionality. Are there any

tricks to importing from a workstation 6.x to a ESX 3.5 server?

I am using converter to split the disks into 2 gig files and then I was

going to configure smb and import the vmdk 2 gig parts into the ESX 3.5

server using vmkfstools (from a windows share to the ESX 3.5 box). Will

that work?

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Vodder
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There's no tricks that I'm aware of - you should just be able to select "standalone" server in the converter wizard and that will import your VM to your ESX host. You should also be able to set it to automatically downsize your disks obviously no lower than the actual data on the partition.

I don't follow why you want to split the partition into 2GB files, unless you can't do as I suggest if you need enterprise version for that? I've always had enterprise so I'm a little bit clouded on that one.

ESX doesn't support "growable" disks either, only fixed size vdmk's, if that was somethign you were thinking.

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Khue
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

SMB has a limit of transfering files no bigger then 2 gigs. If you try to do a copy or a vmkfstools -i on a file larger then 2 gigs you will get an error message. I am sure theres a better way of doing this however I don't have an enterprise license for VMware converter and I am not using VC.

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Vodder
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From what I remember ESX won't connect to a Windows Share, you will need to add Unix for Windows to your Windows box and set up NFS, this will allow ESX to connect to the share that would solve your SMB issue. Or you could transfer the files from WinSCP or FastSCP - though I haven't done that.

In relation to resizing it, if Converter won't do it for you due to licensing, you could use something like DiskDirector or Partition magic. Hope that helps, Tim

@timgleed | VCAP5-DCA/DCD | VCAP4-DCA/DCD | VCP5 | VCP4 | VCP3 | VCP4-DT | VCA4-DT | VTSP4 | MCITP | PRINCE2 | ITIL | BSc Hons
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Khue
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I actually got vmware converter to resize the disks. It gave me the option when selecting which partitions to import to vmdk files. If you hit the drop down menu on the partition selection screen it allows you to specify size.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You should also be able to import directly to your ESX host so that you skip the need to use vmkfstools.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You'll need something like Services for Unix if you want to use Windows as a NFS server to be able to run VMs on that storage. But you can mount a regular Windows share in the service console to copy files to and from the host - http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Tips.html#ESX8.

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Vodder
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Cool - excellent stuff

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Vodder
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Cool , excellent stuff

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Vodder
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Cheers Dave, that's what I meant - Services for Unix, not Unix for Windows Smiley Happy

I didn't know that you could mount regular windows shares in the service console - that's handy to know! Thanks!

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Khue
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It actually will. All you have to do is go to the /etc/samba folder and verify the setup of the smbd.conf file. Once that is setup correctly do "service smbd restart" and that will bring smb online. After that goto the directory in windows you wish to share out and and give everyone permission to do anything to the directory specified. Once the share is created simply do the following command:

mount -t smbfs "//server/share" "/local/destination" -o username=user1,password=password,domain=domain.com

This will then mount the share to the local specified folder (usually /mnt) and from there you can transfer files. You cannot however transfer files larger then 2 gigs (hence having to use the 2gbsparce option when splitting up the disk).

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Vodder
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Cool - like I say, I didn't know you could do that! Handy stuff :smileygrin:

@timgleed | VCAP5-DCA/DCD | VCAP4-DCA/DCD | VCP5 | VCP4 | VCP3 | VCP4-DT | VCA4-DT | VTSP4 | MCITP | PRINCE2 | ITIL | BSc Hons
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