Reduce VCSA disk size

[KeiichiKun]

Hi all,

I've just upgraded vcsa from 5.5 to 6.5. The vCenter has embedded PSC; during installation the only options for storage size are "large" or "X-large" (deployment size is Tiny)

So, hard disk 8 /storage/seat is 550 Gb. Disks are in thick format.

Is there any way to reduce this size? Even unsupported, like use pvmove :smileycry:

Deploy again is not a solution..

Thanks!

[daphnissov]

To what version of 6.5 did you upgrade?

[KeiichiKun]

6.5u1g

[daphnissov]

You may want to do the migration again but clean up some data first. This KB is a good place to start.

[KeiichiKun]

I've destroyed 5.5 vm.

Can I "overwrite" migration from 6.5u1 to 6.5u1? I can't go to 6.5u2.

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

Well, then you're kinda stuck. There's no "overwriting" a migration if the source is gone. Although it would be unsupported (don't even know if it'll work), only thing I can think of is to clean your SEAT data and use a live partition tool to boot into and resize those disks. Better make sure you have a good backup if you do though.

[Vijay2027]

You can use vCenter standalone converter instead to shrink vmdk size.

"vgreduce" will reduce the size of /storage/seat but the underlying vmdk will still be 550GB.

[kompanets]

IDKW, but this KB article can be challenging to locate. Here’s the link: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/78914

The VCSA Installation wizard incorrectly detects the storage deployment size of the source vCenter during migration or upgrade (78914)

Quotes from the KB:
“…Workaround
Note: while there are articles available on the Internet, describing how to shrink the disks of the VCSA after you finished the upgrade, please be aware that none of them are officially supported.

Instead, to work around the issue, you can follow this two-stages approach during upgrade:…”

“Related Information
Note: The same approach can be used to downsize a VCSA during the upgrade.
For example, consider a scenario where the VCSA was originally deployed with XLarge storage size, and the new VCSA should only have a “Large” or “Normal” storage size. However, keep in mind that the new VCSA needs to have enough storage space to accommodate the data imported from the source appliance.”