vCenter to a VM – now with 2 VM disk

[stanj]

I was running our vCenter Server 4.1 on a Dell 2850..

The server was needed on another project that went active on short notice.

I converted the vCenter Server 4.1 Dell 2850 to a VM and increased the C: drive

The Dell 2850 vCenter was removed.

The vCenter on the VM is running as expected without any issues.

However, I now need to shrink the disk. 

The VM settings for shows two Hard Disk:

Hard Disk 1 is Thick provisioned and is 50 GB.

Hard Disk 2 is Thick provisioned and is 136 GB.

Hard Disk 1 is the C drive and has 19 GB free out of the total 50 GB.

Hard Disk 2 is the D drive and has 131 GB free out of the total 136 GB.

Drive D is where the Update Manager stores the metadata

Question is.

Should I attempt to resize drive d: (down size)

or

Remove it and have Update Manager use the C: drive?

thanks

[idle-jam]

the easiest way is to shrink the D:\. making more changes of update manager would be messy. you can use vmware converter again to convert them to thin or resize to your desired size ..

[mittim12]

You could also use storage vmotion to change the disk to thin if you didn't want to us converter again.  

[stanj]

if I use converter, won't this affect the vCenter VM - or cause problems while I run the converter against theVM while loggd inot the vCenter VM?

if trying storage VMotion to shrink the VMDK, how will this affect the performance since the vCenter is a VM and I will be moving the VM files from one SAN volume to another SAN volume?

[a_p_]

if I  use converter, won't this affect the vCenter VM - or cause problems  while I run the converter against theVM while loggd inot the vCenter VM?

I would run the Converter with the vCenter Server VM powered off. Unless you use dVS you should not have any issues after the conversion except for needing to reconfigure the IP settings.

if  trying storage VMotion to shrink the VMDK, how will this affect the  performance since the vCenter is a VM and I will be moving the VM files  from one SAN volume to another SAN volume?

If storage vMotioning such a small VM impacts your storage setup, you should think of a redesign Honestly, a few gigabytes should take a few minutes to be vMotioned to another storage. You may consider to do this while the storage is not utilized above normal though. Basically what vMotion does when migrating thick to thin, is to transfer only used data blocks, it does not do any compression or other things with the vmdk.

André

[stanj]

Ok,

If using Storage VMotion:

If the d: drive VMDK is 136 GB on the vCenter VM, do I edit the setting and change the size of the d: disk to (say 30 GB) then use Storage VMotion ?

But if I am on the vCenter VM and select migrate to move the storage, will this work since I am actually on the VM that has part of the storage being migrated?

[a_p_]

vCenter Server can storage VMotion itself without issues.

With storage VMotion you cannot resize the virtual disk, you can only choose to create the virtual disks on the target as thin provisioned disks. From within the OS the disk size remains the same. If you want to resize the disks you need to use VMware Converter.

André

[bulletprooffool]

Stan - sVmotion does not resize disks - though it can convert thick to thin and thin to thick.

For a resize, you'll need to either use converter, or you could simply consider shutting the VM down and attaching the vmdk to another server and running a copy of the data using something like robocopy, to a smaller disk - then re-attach the new vmdk to your VM in place of the old one. (or alternatively stop the services that access this disk and attach a new disk and copy data - then update mappings etc on the VM

Good luck

[stanj]

thanks guys,

I now remember that Storage VMotion only converts thick to thin,,,

I used converter to p2v the vCenter Server and remember selecting thin for the drives, but for some reason they stll show as think,,

I will use converter and report back..

thanks

[stanj]

Success

Had to do some finagling, but I was able to use standalone converter to resize the d: drive.

thanks

not sure how to reward the points,,possibly the moderator can split them since I went with the converter option..

[Troy_Clavell]

moderators have no ability to add points to threads they did not start.  You don't have to award points, it's just another way of saying thank you for helping.

The most important thing is you found a resolution

[idle-jam]

we're happier to see you solving your problem than thinking how to split the points 😃