Low Disk Space on Virtual Center Server

[cprimeau]

On a blade server, 4 ESX hosts on 4 separate blades, and 1 blade dedicated to VC. The disk has 2 partitions, 20 GB (Virtual Center, with 150 MB free), and 35 GB (unallocated). I would like to know my options for expanding the Virtual Center partition ... or do I have to move it to another server to create more disk space? Thank You in advance for any insight.

[RParker]

I am not a fan of partittion and this is precisely the reason why. Your choices are to download gparted live or get a copy of acronis for Windows server, and resize the master partition, and shrink the unallocated partition. My advice is delete that unallocated one, and make the primary partition 55Gb in size. Partitioning is an archaic unnecessary step, and it's a hold over from the days when we were limited to partition sizes, and it's no longer required.

Is this a VM by chance? If it is you can shutdown your VC, attach the vmdk to another VM and use diskpart to resize the primary partition also...

Another thing is VC is very small, you probably have installation files or some other junk that you don't need, move these elsewhere. VC won't be a problem as long as it's NOT your DB as well, so even if's low on space, it's not going to grow....

[nabsltd]

Although you generally create new disks in the VM environment, in the physical world you would need to partition disks if you want separate drive letters (or mount points).

And, partitioning does have it's advantages. If you use one great big C: drive, that drive is always going to be locked by the OS, and if you need to do any maintenance (chkdsk, partition resize, etc.), it will require a reboot.

But, if you have separate partitions, you generally can just stop some applications and do your disk maintenance on everything but the system partition.

[jjahns]

Just use Windows PE. Boot up, run diskpart, select the volume, and then extend. Remove the boot CD, and reboot.

You should be fine. We do this when deploying workstations.

You also won't throw your VMs offline either, they will just run and the ESX hosts will reconnect.

If I'm wrong, please let me know guys.

[Jasemccarty]

If you have your VCDB on your C: partition, you might want to move it to your secondary partition, depending on the size.

To do that, you would need to stop your VC service, detach the database, then move it and reattach it, then restart your VC service.

Also, if you are downloading VMware Updates to your C:\ drive, you might want to change the download location for that too.

To do that, just update your <patchstore> XML element in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\vci-integrity.xml

To be honest with you, partitioning can be a double edged sword. Some of us old timers do it for security (and other reasons), and often times it bites us in the butt.

Hope that helps.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center

(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach

[RParker]

in the physical world you would need to partition disks if you want separate drive letters (or mount points).

Never had a need to do this. Never been in a company that needed to do this. Never even heard of ANY software or anything that requires a drive letter. Mount points is a Linux term, so maybe you are confusing the 2. But in the Windows world, there is no need to do this, and I have been in MANY IT workshops, software companies, never seen this, so if you do this, you are unique. Want is the issue, if that's what you like.

partitioning does have it's advantages.

VERY FEW, moe disadvantage than anything else. For one how do you manage disk space? It's a hassle to resize and decide how much space to give a partition.. Such as in this case.

If you use one great big C: drive, that drive is always going to be locked by the OS

For what? The machine is locked anyway, ONLY files that are IN USE BY WINDOWS are locked, not the ENTIRE partition, nice try.

if you need to do any maintenance (chkdsk, partition resize, etc.), it will require a reboot.

Really? So tools like Diskeeper, Acronis, and FixIT utilties can't run WHILE the OS is running eh? That's funny I use these tools ALL the time, NEVER reboot, same drive, 1 partiion, IN use by the OS, again, nice try. Sounds like you are using the wrong tools, the integrated tools with Windows maybe, but 3rd party tools don't need this to function.

But, if you have separate partitions, you generally can just stop some applications and do your disk maintenance on everything but the system partition.

So basically you only have 1 reason why you WANT to use partitions, albeit limited functionality, and I give a entire laundry list of problems associated with partitioning..That I have found over the years, but I will spare you. Suffice to say this was a rhetorical comment, and I have heard all of these excuses for using partitions, have yet to find one that is TRULY meaningful... There IS no compelling reason to use partitions. It's PURE preference, but it has more roadblocks than a highway in Cuba. Still an outdated practice.

[Jasemccarty]

in the physical world you would need to partition disks if you want separate drive letters (or mount points).

Never had a need to do this. Never been in a company that needed to do this. Never even heard of ANY software or anything that requires a drive letter. Mount points is a Linux term, so maybe you are confusing the 2. But in the Windows world, there is no need to do this, and I have been in MANY IT workshops, software companies, never seen this, so if you do this, you are unique. Want is the issue, if that's what you like.

On our SQL servers, we use C:, D:, E:, etc (depending on CD/DVD letter) coupled with different RAID arrays, to enhance performance.

On our web servers, we use C:, D:, E:, etc (depending on CD/DVD letter) to isolate IIS installations to prevent directory traversals, and prevent other security issues

On many of our other application servers, we (even on a single hard disk) create separate partitions to ensure that logging doesn't fill the drive up, rendering the system useless

There are many different situations where you would want some partitioning.

partitioning does have it's advantages.

VERY FEW, moe disadvantage than anything else. For one how do you manage disk space? It's a hassle to resize and decide how much space to give a partition.. Such as in this case.

Which is more of a hassle?

Having to resize a partition?

Having to plan accordingly to accomodate for system growth?

Having to accomodate for system failure or system breach because you didn't plan accordingly?

If you use one great big C: drive, that drive is always going to be locked by the OS

For what? The machine is locked anyway, ONLY files that are IN USE BY WINDOWS are locked, not the ENTIRE partition, nice try.That's just silly. RParker, you are correct> > if you need to do any maintenance (chkdsk, partition resize, etc.), it will require a reboot.

Really? So tools like Diskeeper, Acronis, and FixIT utilties can't run WHILE the OS is running eh? That's funny I use these tools ALL the time, NEVER reboot, same drive, 1 partiion, IN use by the OS, again, nice try. Sounds like you are using the wrong tools, the integrated tools with Windows maybe, but 3rd party tools don't need this to function.

With regards to installing everything on C:, sometimes this is an issue.

Most Enterprise class applications can overcome this in most situations, but sometimes there are technical limitations that cannot be circumvented.

But, if you have separate partitions, you generally can just stop some applications and do your disk maintenance on everything but the system partition.

So basically you only have 1 reason why you WANT to use partitions, albeit limited functionality, and I give a entire laundry list of problems associated with partitioning..That I have found over the years, but I will spare you. Suffice to say this was a rhetorical comment, and I have heard all of these excuses for using partitions, have yet to find one that is TRULY meaningful... There IS no compelling reason to use partitions. It's PURE preference, but it has more roadblocks than a highway in Cuba. Still an outdated practice.

I would have to disagree.

Jase

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to VirtualCenter Forum.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[azn2kew]

Well, I suppose people have different preferences on disk partitions, to me I always want to standardize my server builds for C:\15GB and 😧 & E: are devided accordingly, and if I know the application or components required large disk space, then specify locations such as D:\ & E:\. I don't agree putting a single C:\200GB+ in a single drive. We often ghost our servers since we have hundreds of servers with the same model and build level so we only need to ghost the C:\ partitions and the leftover space can be reinitialize and format.

In this case, if its a VC server than using 3rd party imaging tools as mentioned can expand the drive no problem, but using VMware Converter you already had in place you can expand the C:\ anytime easily and works great. If you need to learn options to expand C:\ drive go to www.vmware-land.com for details.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant