IS 2TB still an limit?? Can create disk, cannot send data to it

[RobTryba]

Hi all, 

I must have hit a limit of some kind on my home lab setup, unsure what i t is..

I have private WSUS server, with around 3TB's of data in it. Had it on 3TB HDD, and since it's operating for last several years, once I've run out of space on curent partition, I was just adding new vmdk to VM, expanded spanned volume inside Windows and it was ok.

By now it has 3x 800GB vmdk's (spanned volume) and operating ok, just cannot download any more updates to it due to lack of space.

I have bought 2x 8TB HDD's to allocate it more space (1 for live and other for backups of it), but have run into problems with copying all data from old partition in WinOS to newly created 6TB vmdk.

It just stops at around 2TB's mark, and I get errors like 'directory not existing' or outright folders won't show up.

I have already discovered that it has to be IDE controller for 6TB VMDK, so recreated vmdk on it, selected to keep data on single disk (it has reached 2TB on first file and has now 66GB's on second file - as per attached screenshot) and yet I am still unable to copy all data from old disks to new one.

Have set hardware compatibility mode to WS17, have now created 2x 1.8TB drives and 

What limits do I miss??

At this moment I have reformatted 6TB partition with exFAT, just created 2x 1,8TB vmdk's, formatted with ReNTFS and copying data over for xthienth time..

 

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

I'm a bit confused about what you said, and what's in the screenshot.
You said that you've created a monolithic .vmdk, but the screenshot shows a sparse .vmdk (...-s00x.vmdk).

Anyway, according to https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/17/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-0E980DDB-5050-4109... the virtual disk size is 8TB, depending on the virtual controller type, and the virtual hardware version.

Can you confirm that both requirements are met?
Can you further confirm that the physical disk has a GPT partition table (likely the case), and that the file system has been created/formatted with a cluster size that allows files > 2TB?

André

[RobTryba]

Hi,

VM Workstation will not allow me to create 6TB disk as single vmdk file, it will automatically switch to 'multiple files' - what I meant was that it is a single volume inside of guest Win OS, not host OS..

I have found that article earlier, so it is now on IDE controller (earlier attempts were on SCSI and I did tried to do spanned volume across several 2TB vmdk's, similar to what I have with old disks) - did not worked then, but also found since then that it has to be GPT, not MBR..  So now I have recreated this disk once again, did it this time as GPT volume and partitioned it as NTFS.

Copying data now, still some time to go to reach 2TB's copied... will update thread when I reach that..

[RobTryba]

That was it -have not thought about making it GPT partition in guest OS..

Now have all data in new disk, al sizes are correct to the bit.

Thanks for looking that up..