Can I add space to an existing VM HDD?

[Plumcrazy2010]

I have a pretty basic setup with a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server running ESXi3.5. I have a VM running Windows 2008 server x64 and the server has three drives located on Datastore1. One of my drives is 200GB and is almost full. My datastore is 1.08TB with 400GB free. When I look at my VM properties in the VM Client, it shows my 3 HDD's but it says the Maximum size can only be 256GB.

My question(s) then:

Can I increase my existing drive from 200GB to 256GB on the fly by entering 256GB in the New Size field?

Why is the limit set to 256GB? If I wanted to create a 300GB drive it won't let me. Is this a limitation of ESXi?

Thanks.

[kjb007 · Accepted solution]

The block size of VMFS determines the maximum file on VMFS, or in other words, the maximum disk size you can have. 1 MB block size = 256 GB, 2 MB = 512 GB, 4 MB=1024 GB, and 8 MB=2048 GB file size max. This can not be changed without deleting and recreating your VMFS. You are stuck with 256 GB as the max.

-KjB

[Plumcrazy2010]

Thanks for the reply kjb. What if I have a new iSCSI SAN device that I will be implementing soon. Can I move the VM from the existing location to the new SAN and is there a way to increase from 1MB to 4MB or even 8MB?

[rManic]

We can increase vmdk disk size to 256 GB from the VM's property tab.

Then

go to Disk management inside the Operating System

right click the Volume to be increased and select Extend Volume option to increase size of partition

regards

Manic

[rManic]

yes you can move your vm's to new datastore

you can select the block size only at the time of creating new datastore select the block size 4 or 8 mb on the follwing screen.

you can not change block size once it is created

regards

manic

[Troy_Clavell]

Thanks for the reply kjb. What if I have a new iSCSI SAN device that I will be implementing soon. Can I move the VM from the existing location to the new SAN and is there a way to increase from 1MB to 4MB or even 8MB?

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as stated by "This can not be changed without deleting and recreating your VMFS"

[Plumcrazy2010]

Is it easy to move to a new datastore?

[rManic]

if you have vCenter you can you storage vmotion to move the vm's

or just power of the vm's

then

remove vm from inventory

browse the datastore and use download/ upload option to move to new datastore which you created.

then browse the vmx file of every vm's on the new datastore ,right click and select add to invntory option

that is it

regards

Manic

[kjb007]

If you get a new SAN, and are creating a new VMFS on it, then you can choose the block size. When you install ESXi, it will automatically format all VMFS with 1 MB block size. A bit annoying, but that's what it does. When you create it manually, you can choose which block size to use.

Once you have created the datastore, you can migrate the vm using vmware converter, or if you have vCenter, you can use migrate, or svmotion the vm to a new datastore.

-KjB

[Troy_Clavell]

here's something to keep handy if you stay on local disk

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012683