VMDK Migrate

[RParker]

What is the impact of simply moving a VMDK from 2.5 to 3.0? vmkfstools converts the file, but I don't see a reason to do this if I copy the file and it seems to load just fine on 3.0.

So why go to the trouble of converting it first? It's not slow, all the data is there, no problems, and everything works, so why wait 45 minutes to convert it, when VI3 seems to convert it on it's own?

Also why do the tools take so long to convert, when VI3 apparently can do it so quickly?

[admin]

ESX2.5 VMs will run fine under ESX3, but until you upgrade them to ES3 format you can't use any ESX3 specific features such as >3600MB RAM, hot-add disks, snapshots, etc.

[RParker]

Ah... great MORE work for me to do..

So does VM Converter do ALL the proper conversions then?

[bertdb · Accepted solution]

the VM converter will create a new VM for you and import all the settings that it found in the source VM. So the resulting VM \_will_ be a version 3 VM, because it was newly created.

[RParker]

Actually I found out there is no more converter/importer.

vmkfstools -i does a clone, not an import. All you have to do is vmkfstools -m for migrate, that will take care of it.

And it does a very quick change. Basically the file name is created as a pointer to the original file, and ALL snapshots, and advanced features work, I tested it.

So no need to migrate, just copy the file, run vmkfstools -m (which takes a millisecond) and you are done. But if you copy a 2.5 VMDK to VI3 host, when you start it, it does this for you, so really there is no need to migrate.

Just FYI.