P2V creation speed

[Groundbeef79]

We've been migrating some old physical servers to the virtual world in our vsphere cluster. These are primarily Dell Poweredge 2650 servers. In their prime, these were top of the line monsters. Now they're slow old you know whats. So that's my problem. I tried to P2V one of them last weekend and at 4 hours, I gave up because I didn't want to be here until 4 o'clock in the morning. Switches aren't a problem, I've successfully P2V'd 15 other servers with really good speed - even some of the 2650's. It seems that RAM on the server being P2V'd may be a factor here, I'm not sure though. With similar amounts of data, it took a Poweredge 2650 with 4GB of RAM 1 hour versus one that only had 2GB 4 hours. There is one other possibility, the 4GB has a RAID mirror versus the 2 GB which is configured for RAID5 - as is the server that I gave up on. I should also note that each time I used the bootable converter.

So my question is, what sorts of things can a person do to speed up the P2V process? Does additional RAM in the server being P2V'd help? If so, I can steal RAM out of one of the other servers pretty easily. Should the disk be defragmented first? Would the hot clone work better than the cold clone?

[jayolsen]

Could it be an issue with duplexing of your nic since you are booting from the CD? Do you have your NIC set to auto in your OS or do you manually set that?

Also, are you changing the disk size during the P2V?

[RParker]

So my question is, what sorts of things can a person do to speed up the P2V process?

Nothing. There isn't anything you can do. Defrag has ZERO affect. MAYBE it would be faster by running vConverter locally instead of remote, I say MAYBE because the agent is still the same its just a "push" instead of a remote "pull". But the local agent is just given the destination.

Some software may be interfering, did you reboot BEFORE you tried the convert? I would shut down every single service except VM Converter (and the critical Windows process) close ALL open programs, nothing should be running at all during a convert.

Other than that, install converter on another machine (even a VM) and let it run all night, you don't need to babysit it.

[Groundbeef79]

Nah, duplexing isn't an issue. It's an onboard Broadcom gigabit NIC and comes up 1 GB full duplex on the switch (Dell PowerConnect 6248). In the OS, it's set to auto - does that matter when doing a convert from the bootable converter?

Every single time I've decreased the size of the disk. Like I said before, it only took an hour on a few of the servers and they had their disk size decreased as well. One I did the other day took 4 hours and it only had about 60 GB total data on it. This is all happening on stacked dell powerconnect 6248 switches with tons of redundant links and an EqualLogic PS6000XV SAN.

It's not like I'm trying to P2V to a Compaq Presario with an Iomega external USB drive. I would think this would go much faster. Does the type of file matter? I.E., losts of little files or a few really big files.

[Groundbeef79]

The converter is being run locally. I'm booting from the bootable converter so all that other stuff doesn't really apply.

As for not babysitting - my boss would disagree .

[jayolsen · Accepted solution]

I'd have to agree with RParker then, you probably are going to have to wait it out.

Decreasing the disk size during a convert will increase the time it takes. If you leave the size the same it does a block level copy which should be quicker, but that might not be best for your situation.

[Groundbeef79]

I figured as much. Well, a disk resize HAS to happen. I have experimented with just doing a straightup clone without changing anything then connecting a smaller LUN to the VM and doing a Ghost and resizing the drive that way... kinda clunky, but it gets the job done. Any other quick and easy ways out there? Maybe a V2V with a resize after the P2V? Thoughts?

Thanks for all the input so far both of you!

[jayolsen]

Depending on what the guest OS is you could try a checkdisk before your next attempt, doubt it would do anything but shouldn't hurt.

[RParker]

As for not babysitting - my boss would disagree

Fine give him the converter access, let HIM babysit it.... It either works or it doesn't, what is the point of "watching" it?

[Groundbeef79]

I guess if there's a problem after the P2V, I can shut it down and bring the physical one back up. Actually watching it is pretty boring!

[DSTAVERT]

Changing the disk size means a file level copy as opposed to the block level copy if there is no size change. I would do a V2V after the fact, taking advantage of the new hardware. You could do a clone in vCenter and change disk size or use the converter tool. For a supported OS converter can do the conversion, syncing the final changes between the original and the new VM, starting the new VM and shutting down the original.

[bshubinsky]

I had some issues running the latest Converter Standalone client. Once I installed the vSphere plugin and ran my P2Vs that way it seemed to be a lot speedier. I've always ran my P2Vs as a hot clone without much issue. When I asked a similar question when my Standalone client was going dirt slow the general response seemed to be "that's just how it runs".

You can try to stop as many services as you can (without breaking Windows) to keep the system working as minimally as possible when doing your conversion.

As far as babysitting, I have to do that too. The easier way (especially with some of the bigger/slower VMs) is to use a Citrix connection or VPN and see if your boss will let you monitor from home.

[Groundbeef79]

Unfortunately in this case, it was a domain controller, so I couldn't do the hot clone. It's been my experience as well that the hot clone is usually faster.

We have Dell PowerEdges for the most part, but some were purchased through a third party and they didn't see the wisdom in putting DRAC controllers in them, and we don't do KVM over IP, so for a lot of them I actually have to be here... Last night I P2V'd a PowerEdge 2950 in 45 minutes and an old PowerEdge 350 (Pentium III 850 with IDE drives and Windows 2000 Server, yikes!) in about 3 hours, so it really looks like the age of the hardware has A LOT to do with it.