When running a p to v conversion, what is it that would cause multiple .vmdk files to be created (>30 of them) from a single physical hard drive less than 250GB? Is there a setting that controls this? Thanks
Assuming you are on Windows and have a split virtual disk like this:
30.03.2011 22:59 393.216 mydisk-s001.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s002.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s003.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s004.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s005.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s006.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s007.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s008.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s009.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s010.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 65.536 mydisk-s011.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 882 mydisk.vmdk
then you can run e.g.
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r mydisk.vmdk -t 0 onedisk.vmdk
which will result in a single vmdk for this vdisk
30.03.2011 23:02 2.752.512 onedisk.vmdk
The original vmdk's remain untouched. This means you need additional disk space to run this command.
André
Were there multiple partitions on the hard drive? - vmdks might have been created for each partition
What's the source and what's the target ? Especially, what is the target file system and target virtualization product you selected?
André
Unfortunately someone else did the p2v so I can't say what options they chose and no way to find out. Only stuck with a pile of .vmdk's I'm now trying to deploy
I assume the conversion target was e.g. an external (or internal) disk with a FAT/FAT32 file system which is not capable to hold large files and therefore the converter created 2 GB disks. If you deploy the VM to a desktop product (Workstation, Player, ...) on an NTFS file system, you may use vmware-vdiskmanager to convert the disk back to a single vmdk.
André
Thanks - I'm looking but not seeing vmware-vdiskmanager advertised to allow you to do this specific task of converting multiple vmdk's into one
Assuming you are on Windows and have a split virtual disk like this:
30.03.2011 22:59 393.216 mydisk-s001.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s002.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s003.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s004.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s005.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s006.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s007.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s008.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s009.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 327.680 mydisk-s010.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 65.536 mydisk-s011.vmdk
30.03.2011 22:59 882 mydisk.vmdk
then you can run e.g.
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r mydisk.vmdk -t 0 onedisk.vmdk
which will result in a single vmdk for this vdisk
30.03.2011 23:02 2.752.512 onedisk.vmdk
The original vmdk's remain untouched. This means you need additional disk space to run this command.
André
there is no good reason to convert to a single file - the split format is more stable then the one-piece growing format and it is easier to backup it via network.
Only reason that makes sense to convert it - you plan to use many snapshots on this VM
Keep in mind if you use FAT32 filesystem to store your vmdk you MUST use the split format
OK thanks for the input