VM Hypervisor 6.7 u3 and 7.0 vmdk export problem large vm

[zoyi81]

Hello All,

I have a VMWare hypervisor  7 server  with datastore 31.95TB provisioned is 28.7TB free 3.25TB.

I created Ubuntu backup server to there. And i would like to export the near empty server to have an initial backup of it.

But i can not!

I start the export method but it is freezing around 1.5-1.6 GB and do nothing.

What can be the problem? Some settings could be cause this or what?

Datastore is in VMFS6

the disk is "Thick provisioned, eagerly zeroed".

size is: 28.699999999254942TB

It containing LVM file system.

Can someone help what can cause this problem and how can i solve it?

on 6.7U3 was the same problem!

Thanks in advance

[a_p_]

How long did it take to create the "Thick provisioned, eagerly zeroed". virtual disk?

I guess that the export doesn't freeze, but checks the whole virtual disk for data that needs to be exported.

You may connect to the host through SSH and run esxtop to see whether there's disk activity.

André

[zoyi81]

With ovftool i could export the vmdk ovf ova etc. it was taken around 18hours.  The vmdk exported to 1.6GB. (disks are RAID 10 6x12TB )

Regarding André's post the creation was around 30-60 minutes.

André,

may i choose lazy zeroed? it would be the export  faster?

[adgate]

Please note that ESXi is the name of a hypervisor. VMware is the name of a company the hypervisor belongs to.

I created Ubuntu backup server to there. And i would like to export the near empty server to have an initial backup of it.

Did you created a backup server on that ESi server or is it another, second server?

Where do you export the 28.7TB VMDK? What is the storage capacity of that server?

[zoyi81]

Please note ESI is not a product of VMware

i would like to use an ubuntu 20.04 lts as backup server on a VMWare 6.7U3 or 7.0 ESXi server. I tried to export local machine (1TB) and a NAS (12TB) and the result is the same. if i turn to thin provisioned than it is fast but it is not ok for me. Why is the thick provisioned so slow if i am using the whole disk?

[a_p_]

Did you also test a VM with a thick provisioned, lazy zeroed disk?

What I could think of - just a guess - is exporting a lazy zeroed VM is faster than an eager zeroed VM, because the export process can benefit from the VMFS metadata, where only not already zeroed blocks need to be checked for data.

André