Migrating VM to a different Datastore

[haverer]

Hi,

All of our Virtual Machines reside on a Fibre Attached SAN. I wish to move the Virtual Machine to its current Datastore onto another Datastore. Last night I decided to Browse to the Datastore and I did a 'copy-paste', nearly 12 hours later it was still trying to copy!

I then did a right click 'Migrate' on the Virtual Machine but get the following error:

- vmdk is larger than the maximum size supported by the Datastore

- Insufficient disk space on Datastore

I then changed the block size on the Datastore but got the same error. I browsed to the datastore and noticed that I have some vmdk Virtual Disk Files that are over 2TB Each!! Is there any way just to migrate the Virtual Machine and its 20gb HDD Partition vmdk onto a different Datastore? I am guessing the reason these 2TB Disks are appearing is because they are the Virtual Hard Disks that I have added in (even though they are stored on the SAN)?

Hope this makes sense!

Thanks

[AWo]

You need to have sVMotion. Then you can choose to migrate individual virtual disks to different datastores.

Otherwise you have to remove the disks from the guest (not deleteing them from disk, just remove them from the guest), move them and re-add them to the guest.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[schepp · Accepted solution]

When you migrate and choose the datastore you want the VM to migrate to, you can choose the extended view. Here you can choose a seperate target for every vDisk. Just choose a target for your system vdisk and let the other disks where they are.

Regards

[a_p_]

I don't think it's the 20GB system disk which fills the datastore. I rather think there may be snapshots filling it up.

Please provide a screenshot of the datastore window, showing all files, sizes and time stamps. Make sure the file names are not truncated.

André

[haverer]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all your responses!

André, I haven't made any snapshots of this VM - the other VMDK files are Virtual Disks associated to the SAN. I will give the 'advanced' option a try (as below) and if I have no luck with this then I will try sVmotion. I will report back on how I got on. Thanks again

[haverer]

Guys,

Under 'Migrate Virtual Machine' I have selected the 2 files I wish to migrate to the new Datastore: Configuration file and the 20Gb Hard Disk. However, looking at it - the next option is 'Disk Format' and I'm a bit apprehensive in clicking Next incase it reformats the Disk! I'm hoping someone can confirm it just moves it to the new Datastore and doesn't actually format anything?

[schepp]

Disk Format means Thin, Thick or like the source disk. So no data loss here

[AWo]

Don't worry! That "Disk Format" means which disk format the target should become, thick or thin. Nothing gets formatted.

TRUST US! Hehehehehe....

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[haverer]

Thank you - worked perfectly!! Genius!

I have another question on a similiar line to this but will open a new discussion. Thanks

[haverer]

Thank you - worked perfectly!! Genius!

I have another question on a similiar line to this but will open a new discussion. Thanks