Migrate Virtual Machine with duplicate vmdk names on different data stores

[APuty]

Hi all,

I need to migrate a vm with 4 vmdk's spread across multiple data stores to a single datastore on a different SAN. 2 of the vmdk's have identical names. Typically I migrate vm's using virtual center by shutting down the vm and then simply right clicking, selecting migrate, different datastore etc. In this case however I am not sure how it is going to deal with the duplicate file names and as this is a critical server I am a bit nervous. Anyone been down this road? TIA!

MS

[EricTrentMiller]

would exporting it as an OVF and then deploying an ovf in the new location solve your problem?

[APuty]

I don't think so. I mean, I can do this all manually using scp but it's much easier just to migrate using vcenter...just not sure how smart vcenter is about this.

[APuty]

Anyone else? I really need to know what vcenter is going to do when it tries to copy the second identically named vmdk to the new location on the datastore. Will it rename it and update the vmx appropriately or freak out?

[EricTrentMiller]

why not add a new disk to the vm with a unique name (the same size as one of the duplicates), copy the data over to the new disk, and then remove one of the duplicates before migrating?

[a_p_]

I can't tell you what would happen with the second disk, however to eliminate this, rename one of the disks to have unique names.

See http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002491 for how to do that.

Make sure you don't have any snapshots on the disk you want to rename!

André

[kjb007]

When you run a migrate task across datacenters, your vmdk files will typically be renamed by vCenter to match your vm display name and each will get an _# to designate its disk order.

vExpert

VMware Communities Moderator

-KjB

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, 2010

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