The upside of using a raw device mapping is that I can have a volume greater than 2TB. What are the issues with these?
- You will not be able to take a snapshot of the disk;
- You will never be able to migrate this VM to an older ESXi version.
Besides this.... good to go.
That's what I always thought too. Is this still the case with esx5? The docs talk about using "virtual" compatibility mode with "dependent" disk mode. It sounds like you get these features back again.
Virtual compatibility mode only allows you to have 2TB VMDKs as it needs to create a VMDK "pointer" on the VMFS where the VM resides. Check the doc http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r51/vsphere-51-configuration-maximums.pdf page 4, about VMFS-5:
Raw Device Mapping size (virtual compatibility)
2TB minus 512 bytes
Raw Device Mapping size (physical compatibility)
64TB
Ah, ok. That's the gotcha.
If possible mark the answers as useful or correct so others can check it out too
