VM disk space allocation confusion

[Andrew800]

In the vSphere Client, my vCenter server, a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine, shows under its Summary tab that the "Provisioned" space for it is 88.11GB; its "Not-shared Storage" is 56.24GB; its "Used" storage is also 56.24GB.  In the Resources section under the 'Storage' and 'Status' list of the datastores this VM is using, it shows 2 datastores: Prod1 and Prod2.  Under the 'Edit Settings' menu for this VM, for Hard disk 1 it shows the provisioned size as being 40GB on the 'Prod2' datastore.  The CD/DVD drive is set to 'Client Device' and it does not seem to be connected to an ISO on any other data store.  This is an HA environment with DRS.  If you go into the VM guest OS itself, inside the Storage Manager and also in Explorer, it shows only one drive (C:) which is 40GB.  That drive is down to a little over 3GB remaining and I don't understand why the numbers and allocation do not match up, and I also need to extended this drive if possible.  This machine, I believe, was deployed from a cloned template of a server (which was edited to have more memory at least but I think I left it set to 40GB and need more).  Why does it show 88.11GB/56.24GB as provisioned and used?  What is the best approach here?

[marcelo_soares]

Questions:

- The 40GB disk is the only one? Is it thin o thick provisioned?

- Don't you have snapshots on this VM?

- How much memory is assigned to this VM?

[Andrew800]

It shows in Edit Settings as 'Thick Provision Lazy Zero'.  Even under 'Datastores and Datastore Clusters' view for the Prod2 datastore (and Prod1), it shows as being used by this VM with 88.11GB provisioned, 56.24GB used... but other than that I can't seem to find any sort of connection in the VM to more than one 40GB drive.  There's only one disk listed (Hard disk 1) in Edit Settings which is on Prod2, and there are 8GB (8192MB) of memory allocated to this VM.  Looks like there is one snapshot I took several weeks ago (Manager shows The VM name, then 'Snapshot of....', then 'You are here', in the cascaded style underneath).

[marcelo_soares]

Here you are. The VM uses 40GB + 8 GB for vswp (mem size if not reserved). All the rest is from the snapshot. Browse the VM datastore to check the size of the snapshot file, it should be +/-40GB. Delete it if you will not use it anymore.

[Andrew800]

That makes sense.  But back to the main issue, how can I expand this drive or is it possible?

[marcelo_soares]

First remove the snapshot. After that, you will be able to increase the disk size on the Edit Settings (only change the size from 40GB to whathever you want, always up, never down). After that, rescan the disk inside the w2k8 and increase the partition, it should work.

[Andrew800]

I've actually done this before, I guess the snapshot was the only difference... however, (and I ran into this issue before but don't remember how I handled that either) after increasing the space allocated for the VM from 40GB to 80GB and then rescanning the disks in the OS, Disk Manager shows the 40GB added as 'Unallocated'.  Is there a way to join this unallocated space with the current 40GB C drive (or extend it..?) or must this be added as a new partition?  (Note: There is currently only the C drive)

*EDIT:  Nevermind.  I was able to do it.  Thanks for your help!

[marcelo_soares]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

Now is up to the OS

[marcelo_soares]

Cool, consider awarding points selecting one of the answers as correct. Good luck!

Marcelo

twitter: @mtsoares42