Creating a 1.05TB disk

[itsuperman]

Hi All,

I am wondering if anybody can help me with the following:

I have a VMWare host with the following config:

2 quad-core CPUs, 2x300GB (270GB) drives in raid1, 8x400GB drive in raid5 (2199GB). I have VMWare ESX installed on RAID1, and the guest VMs are going to be on the RAID5. While I was installing VMWare I have split the 2199GB partition in two, 1000GB and 1199GB, vmfs3 partitions. Now I want to create a 1199GB virtual disk on a 1199GB partition and add it to a guest OS, but the maximum file size got set to 256GB for this partition. I thought I would be able to drop the 1199GB partition, and readd it, and then configure the maximum file size, but I cannot even do that, getting an error message when trying to delete:

Error during the configuration of the host: destroyvmfsdatastore: can't delete partition 2 on LUN vmhba1:1:0.

I have tried it both, from the Virtual infrastructure client and from the Virtual Center, same error.

Any input would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

[jamieorth]

Are you clicking "Edit" then "Remove" on the datastore in question? Also, is there anything already on the datastore?

Regards...

Jamie

Remember, if it's not one thing, it's your mother...

[kjb007]

When you format the disk with VMFS, you have to modify the block size. When you create a VMFS with a 1 MB (default) block size, then the maximum file (vm disk) you can create on it is 256GB. In order to create a 1 TB disk, you will need a 4 MB block size, and a maximum of a 2 TB disk can be created using an 8 MB block size on your vmfs. So, delete your datastore, and re-create it, and when you're creating the VMFS, you will have the option to change the block size.

-KjB

[TomHowarth]

<div>Hi All,

I am wondering if anybody can help me with the following:

I have a VMWare host with the following config:

2 quad-core CPUs, 2x300GB (270GB) drives in raid1, 8x400GB drive in raid5 (2199GB). I have VMWare ESX installed on RAID1, and the guest VMs are going to be on the RAID5. While I was installing VMWare I have split the 2199GB partition in two, 1000GB and 1199GB, vmfs3 partitions. Now I want to create a 1199GB virtual disk on a 1199GB partition and add it to a guest OS, but the maximum file size got set to 256GB for this partition. I thought I would be able to drop the 1199GB partition, and readd it, and then configure the maximum file size, but I cannot even do that, getting an error message when trying to delete:

Error during the configuration of the host: destroyvmfsdatastore: can't delete partition 2 on LUN vmhba1:1:0.

I have tried it both, from the Virtual infrastructure client and from the Virtual Center, same error.

Any input would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

This is caused because the VMFS partition has been formated with the default 1MB block size, this means the the maximum VMDK you can create is 256GB. if you wish to create a larger one you will need to reformat the partition with a larger block size,

the following block sizes relate to maximum VMDK sizes

1MB = 256Gb

2MB = 512GB

4MB = 1024GB

8MB = 2048GB

this format can be done either from the VC ie delete datastore and recreate it with a larger block size comsumate with the required VMDK size, or via the service console using VMFSTOOLS.

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator