How can I get multiple datastores on one LUN?

[VitoJr]

I am setting up a new Vshpere ESXi 5 server on a 3U server with 9TB of RAID space.  I know this is not recommended to put VMs and file storage on one box, but it is all I have.

I created one 10 GB partition for the ESX portion, 1 TB for VMs and reserved 8 TB for file storage.  My goal is to create a few datastores and point one VM to each datastore for easier segregation.

When I create a datastore via the menu options, vSphere wants to take the entire 8TB.  I can't seem to create smaller stores.

Is there a better way of doing this with my setup?  I don't want to have the VM server and file storage together in one datastore.

Do I need to use command line for this?

Thank you.

[EdWilts]

Take that RAID array and create multiple LUNs...

[weinstein5]

or you can Increase the size of you VM partition and just create multiple virtual disks

[VitoJr]

Thank you for the responses.  I want to keep data seperate from the VMs in case a VM dies.

I could repartition the RAID into LUNS, but I want one RAID partition with several dynamic datastores.  Not sure if that can be done.

[Mouhamad]

Please check this

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1827892

[a_p_]

I could repartition the RAID into LUNS, but I want one RAID partition with several dynamic datastores.

Although a VMFS datastore is just a partition with type VMFS (FB) and one could easily create multiple partitions manually, it's not supported to have more than one VMFS datastore on a disk/LUN.

I don't want to have the VM server and file storage together in one datastore.

What's the reason for this? Usually the OS does not put much load on the datastore. Unless there are really special needs I always keep the VM's virtual disks in one folder. You can still create the VM with two virtual disks for OS and data and separate them later if needed.

André

[vito_cavallo]

Thanks again everyone.  I will try seperate paritions on the one large datastore.  If I cannot make it work, then breakup the RAID into smaller LUNS.

Thanx, all were very helpful.

[orthohin]

1 LUN = 1 Datastore = Many VMDKs.

For each LUN having 2TB-512b  maximum size. then it would be 500TB ++ before you run out of space.

It is quite rare to reach such limits.

Regards,
Milton