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ragsdalej
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Expanding Datastore

Without doing research I was told to increase the space alloted to our current VM's on the SAN (FC connection to the ESX servers), now I am not uncertain of how to increase the datastore size. The orginal size of the device was 500GB in our storage system we extended this partition by 300GB.

This is where i am stuck

Under Storage Adapters I did a rescan of the device and it detected the added capacity of 800GB

I then started the process to add an extent and was uncertain of what the outcome would be. I have selected the new device, and am concerned by what I see on the next screen. See attached file.

I want to make sure that what i am doing isn't going to erase my current disk layout and only format/make available the new space alloted to the Volume (VMWareStorage)

Thank you.

Justin Ragsdale * Asst. Network Administrator / Wentworth Institute of Technology * SunGard Higher Education Solutions * 550 Huntington Ave, Boston MA 02115 *

Justin Ragsdale Network Administrator Wentworth Institute of Technology
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troberts
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You can expand a datastore that uses the VMFS format by attaching a hard disk partition as an extent. The datastore can span over 32 physical storage extents.

You can dynamically add the new extents to the datastore when you need to create new virtual machines on this datastore, or when the virtual machines running on this datastore require more space. It will not damage the existing datastore.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vi301/server_config/sc_storage_manage.11.8.html

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esiebert7625
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It's best if you create a separate LUN of 300GB, scan for new devices then add it as an extent or create an additional VMFS volume, extents are not recommended, if you lose one LUN you will lose the whoel VMFS volume. Optionally you can create a new 800GB LUN, create a new VMFS volume, migrate your VM's to it and delete the old LUN.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/515084#515084

http://communities.vmware.com/message/509066#509066

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ragsdalej
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Thank you.

Appreciate the comments. Do you think I would be ok to proceed though even though its not the recommend way.

I might just do a snapshot of the vol on the san in case something happens. In the end I prob will just "start" over and move things over to the new storage. I haven't done that before is it easy.

Justin Ragsdale * Asst. Network Administrator / Wentworth Institute of Technology * SunGard Higher Education Solutions * 550 Huntington Ave, Boston MA 02115 * Blackberry 857-829-0623 * Work 617-989-4584 * Fax 617-989-4502 * ragsdalej@wit.edu * www.sungardhe.com

CONFIDENTIALITY: This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain confidential, proprietary and privileged information, and unauthorized disclosure or use is prohibited. If you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete this e-mail from your system.

 

Justin Ragsdale Network Administrator Wentworth Institute of Technology
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troberts
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You can expand a datastore that uses the VMFS format by attaching a hard disk partition as an extent. The datastore can span over 32 physical storage extents.

You can dynamically add the new extents to the datastore when you need to create new virtual machines on this datastore, or when the virtual machines running on this datastore require more space. It will not damage the existing datastore.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vi301/server_config/sc_storage_manage.11.8.html

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Andrew_Judge
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I wouldn't mess with the VMFS drive geometry. Extents are not so good. What SAN are you using and does it support NMV / auto-provisoning? Probably not since you are asking about adding 300GB...

Can you migrate to local storage or a new LUN? Just migrate to a new LUN by mapping an 800 and then migrate to that one and reclaim the 500 / 300 already mapped.

In sum, axe the extent.

Best regards,

Andrew Judge

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