Increase Max VM Size

[MotoBeats11]

I have a VM that is currently limited to 256GB for the hard drive (.vmdk file size). I would like to increase it to 400GB. I know I have done this in the past but forget how.

P.S. - Anyone know how to get their old account updated for the new VM communities login? I tried the email address given by the sign up process but alas, no response.

[Chamon]

The block size of the VMFS partition needs to be at least 2mb to allow this. Your block size is probably set to 1mb.

[MotoBeats11]

Great. How do I check what my VMFS is set to?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

See this forum for account issues - http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/general/accnt?view=discussions&start=0.




Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

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[Chamon · Accepted solution]

Click on the ESX host -> click the configuration tab -> -> click Storage ->click the LUN where your VM is stored Look under the Formatting section for this info. I have not moved a VM to a LUN with a different block size so I am not sure how that would work. You CANNOT change the block size of this LUN without wiping out the data on it so be carful what you do. If anything you would need to create a new LUN and format it with at least a 2mb block size. This will allow for a 500GB vmdk. 4mb would let you have a 1tb vmdk and 8mb a 2tb vmdk. Then move the VM storage to this new LUN. Again I have not done this before so I don't know what the process would be.

[MotoBeats11]

Indeed you are correct. I forgot I made one datastore with 1MB size and the other with a 2MB size. Guess that explains why I could not transfer my largest VMs to the datastore with the smaller size.

So I looked in the settings and can not figure out how to change the size.

The good news is that I can fit everything on one datastore so nothing will be lost.

[MotoBeats11]

I got it. I deleted that datastore and then added it back in with my prefered settings.

[Chamon]

So all is right with your vm then? If so glad to hear it. Have you

moved a vm from a datastore with one block size to another with a

larger block size and been able to increase the size of the vmdk?

On Jan 20, 2010, at 12:23 AM, MotoBeats11 <communities-emailer@vmware.com

[MotoBeats11]

Yes. I am now able to:

1. Move my 400GB VM over to datastore1

2. Able to increase the size of a VM on datastore1 to 512GB.