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Rahuldey
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Unmounting a Datastore in ESX5.0

Dear Friends,

Is there any best practice I should follow in order to unmount a datastore from a ESXI 5.0 cluster?

Is it as simple as rightclick the datastore and select->unmount?

PS: I have already ensured that there datastore is empty. Other than that is there anything I should disable or concerned about?

-Rahul

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vThinkBeyondVM
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Is there anyway I can change the datastore heatbeat to the new datastores?

Yes, you can change : Right click on cluster>>edit settings>><if HA is enabled, you will get option :"Datastore heartbeating"> >> Once you click on ":"Datastore heartbeating", you will get datastore ticked for heartbeating. >>Now you can un-tick the datastore that you want to unmount & select other new datastore which is listed there.


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Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
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Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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vThinkBeyondVM
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Below are best practices to unmount datastore from vCenter.

Below checks should be considered.

-No VM resides on the datastore

-The datastore is not part of Datastore cluster

-The datastore is not managed by storage DRS

-SIOC is disabled for this datastore

-The datastore is not used for vSphere HA heartbeat.


If you unmount from VI client connecting to vCenter, these checks will be handled by VI client.



From ESXi host

- Only check feasible is : -No VM resides on the datastore

-Remaining checks are not easy to code if we want to unmount from ESXI directly. The reason is ESXi can not know weather SIOC/SDRS etc are enabled.

-If you have to unmount from ESXi, you first should check either manaully or pro-grammatically  from VC  & if everything is OK, finally unmount/detach the datastore from ESXi




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Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

marcelo_soares
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Hi Rahul,

You are on the right path. You can unmount it from all the ESXs in the cluster - be sure to unmount it on all hosts that have visibility to it.

If you will UNPRESENT this LUN later, as you have 5.0 I would recomment the following procedure to avoid an APD condition: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1009449

Hope this helps,

Marcelo

Marcelo Soares
Rahuldey
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Thanks a lot guys.

Marcelo- I have ESX5.0 and I believe APD is fixed in this release. Do I still need to worry about APD?

Vikas- I will be doing the unmounting from a VI client? Does vSpehre HA heartbeat also gets checked automatically from the VI client?

Regards

Rahul

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Rahuldey
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As I was running through the datastore browser, I could see a folder named .vSpehre-HA.

Perhaps this is the datastore heartbeat folder and this signifies that datastore is enabled for Heatbeat.

Is there anyway I can change the datastore heatbeat to the new datastores?

-Rahul

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vThinkBeyondVM
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Yes, vSphere HA heartbeat also gets checked automatically if you connect vCenter from VI client. But not from the direct connection to ESXi from VI client.

You can check manually from host cluster : Right click on cluster>>edit settings>><if HA is enabled, you will get option :"Datastore heartbeating"> >> Once you click on ":"Datastore heartbeating", you will get datastore ticked for heartbeating.


----------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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vThinkBeyondVM
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Is there anyway I can change the datastore heatbeat to the new datastores?

Yes, you can change : Right click on cluster>>edit settings>><if HA is enabled, you will get option :"Datastore heartbeating"> >> Once you click on ":"Datastore heartbeating", you will get datastore ticked for heartbeating. >>Now you can un-tick the datastore that you want to unmount & select other new datastore which is listed there.


----------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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Rahuldey
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Thanks Vikas,

I see that no datastores are ticked but there is a folder .vSpegre-HA in each of the datastores.

Does that mean by datastore is still enabled for heartbeat?

-Rahul

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vThinkBeyondVM
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If you do not see that datastore is ticked then it is mean that that datastore is not enabled for datastore-heart-beating for sure.

In your case, folder is still visible, it is mean that that datastore was selected as datastore-heartbeat earlier but now it is disabled. So you need not to worry.

Also, as I said, VI client connected to vCenter server will show you whether datastore is enabled for heartbeating. Just right click on datastore>>unmount>> window will show you all the checks (red : means enabled for heartbeating) : When you click on "unmount" it will not immediately unmount the datastore until you click on OK button. So you need to worry if you want to verify by this way as well.


----------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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Rahuldey
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Thanks Vikas,

For unmounting the RDM LUNs I believe I should go to conguration->storage->devices?

Regards

Rahul

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Titanomachia
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Rahuldey
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Thanks, Is there any way to do this step by GUI? I want to permanently decomm the device.

  1. Perform a rescan on all ESXi hosts which had visibility to the LUN. The device is automatically removed from the Storage Adapters.

When the device is detached, it stays in an unmounted state even if the device is re-presented (that is, the detached state is persistent). To bring the device back online, the device must be attached.

If the device is to be permanently decommissioned from an ESXi host, you may have to manually remove the NAA entries from the host configuration:

  1. To list the permanently detached devices, run the command:

    # esxcli storage core device detached list

    The output is similar to:

    Device UID                            State
    ------------------------------------  -----
    naa.50060160c46036df50060160c46036df  off
    naa.6006016094602800c8e3e1c5d3c8e011  off


  2. To permanently remove the device configuration information from the system, run the command:

    # esxcli storage core device detached remove -d NAA_ID

    For example:

    # esxcli storage core device detached remove -d naa.50060160c46036df50060160c46036df
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Titanomachia
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No, unfortunately there isn't

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