Can't expand VMFS datastore

[jrewing20111014]

Hiho!

I've a VM with two partitions. An (IDE) partition for the system and an (SCSI) partition for data. The SCSI partition has it's own underlying LUN on a storage. The LUNs capacity was 50GB where the VMFS datastore uses nearly the complete LUN capacity (49,75GB). So I've expanded the LUN on the storage to 60GB and now I want to expand the VMFS datastore on this LUN and add some more GB. But although I can see the raw capacity (60GB) of the LUN under storage/properties for this VMFS datastore I can not expad the VMFS datastore itself. When I click expand I will get no device/LUN to use.

Any suggestions?

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Check out kb 1039239 for a possible explanation.

Good Luck!

[a_p_]

What type of storage (iSCSI, FC, SAS) do you use?

Did you try to grow the storage while connected to vCenter Server or the ESX(i) host directly? In some cases you can only grow the datastore when connected to an ESX(i) host directly.

André

[jrewing20111014]

Hi and thank you for your replies!

We're useing iSCSI over Ethernet to link the ESX (4.0U3 / VFMS 3.33) Hosts with the Storage. Until now I only tried the way over vCenter which resulted in the problem I've described. Below you can see, that vCenter already recognized the new size (60GB) of the LUN.

When I click Expand in this window i would except the see the 60GB LUN but vCenter offers nothing to select.

[a_p_]

Did you already try to grow the datastore by connecting to one of the ESXi hosts directly? I saw this happen a couple of times. You will have to increase the size from one of the hosts and then do a rescan on the other hosts when connected to the vCenter Server again.

André

[jrewing20111014]

Not yet. Do you mean via console commands?

[a_p_]

No, you can use the vSphere Client to connect to one of the hosts.

André

[jrewing20111014]

The only option I know this way is to edit the HDD properties for this VM. But they are the same like the options when I connect to vCenter (no more space available to expand).

BTW I don't believe that this way is the way I want to go, because expanding the size of a hdd (VMDK) is limited by the avaliable VMFS-Datastore, isn't it. And my primary goal is to expand the VMFS-Datastore.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

And my primary goal is to expand the VMFS-Datastore.

That is exactly what I understood. When you log on to an ESXi host (using the vSphere Client and the root user) you will have the same storage wizard dialog as in the screen shot you posted before. After logging in, go to "Configuration" -> "Storage", select the VMFS datatstore you want to expand and run the wizard.

André

[jrewing20111014]

You're awesome!

I missed the menu for the datastores like in vCenter but I got it by selecting the Host/Configuration/Datastore.

Thank you for your patience.