How does vSphere 5 handle the addition of physical memory to a host?

[ShoreNuff]

Hi,

I'm running VMware ESXi, 5.5.0, 2068190.  The vSphere system is currently running with 64 GB or physical memory.  What will happen if I just add additional memory to the host and re-boot?  By just, I mean adding the physical memory to the host and making no changes to any vSphere settings.

If there is documentation on how to and or when to add physical memory and how much physical memory to add, please point me to that.

Thanks.

[vembutech1 · Accepted solution]

You don't need to change any settings to reflect the additional memory added on your ESXi host. When accessing through vSphere client after ESXi host reboot, total memory will be updated automatically.

[erikverbruggen]

vSphere will use the newly added memory without any further configuration.

You will need to migrate the vm's of the host or power them down to be able to shut down the host and add memory to it. But that is the only steps you will need to do to take advantage of the extra memory.

[SureshKumarMuth]

Hi,

Its just an addition of resource to the machine , once ESXi is booted again it will detect the memory and add that in its resource pool. You have to just go with the hardware best practices i.e having same size of memory across DIMMs, if your DIMM slot one has 64 GB memory, use same size in the other DIMMs.There is nothing other specific to this and it can be removed always if it causes any trouble for you.

[ShoreNuff]

Thanks.

I thought as much.  But, could not find it documented anywhere;-)

[ShoreNuff]

Thanks.

I thought as much.  But, could not find it documented anywhere;-)