?'s for creating new Datastores

[mmulcahy]

I am new to the VM environment and have been tasked with creating the new Vm's required by our company. In the past this has not been an issue since it is similar to building a computer only using a wizard. The obstacle now is i do not have enough storage space available for the newest VM and provisioning more space has not come easy. I have tried finding help through vendor support channels and a fair amount of research with little positive out-come. I am hopeful, although reluctant, to ask here because "dumb" questions such as this can frequently be meet with harsh criticism, but i feel the only "dumb" question is the one not asked. Is there anyone that can help me with this? Thanks.

[cszone]

If dont have space on your datastore it's logicaly add new storage or delete old or not use vm's

[mmulcahy]

I assume we have plenty of HD space as our HD array has about 43TB of space and we currently have just 2 data stores composed of 2TB each. All of the VMs we have are essential so i can not delete any of them, i have included some screen shots to give a better picture of what I am running into.

When I try to add storage from the configuration tab nothing shows up where i would select the Disk/LUN.

[taylorb]

You have to present some more storage to the VMhost(s) first.  This is typically done by presenting a new LUN or NFS share.   You would do that from your storage system first.  You said you have a 43TB system with only 2TB used, so there should be plenty of room to create additional storage.    Once you have presented the storage to the VM host(s) you will see available volumes in the add storage wizard above. 

If you are using a VM cluster with vmotion, HA, etc, you will need to present to storage to all VM hosts in the cluster from the SAN side.  But you only create the additional datastore on one of the hosts. 

[mmulcahy]

What is the process of presenting the storage to the host? Do you know of any tutorials?

[douglasarcidino]

Go to your storage device, create a new LUN and assign it to the ESXi hosts. Then you can use the add storage wizard.

[taylorb]

It depends on what storage you have. The exact steps are different on each device and vary based on the type and protocol.  For example if you have a Netapp with an NFS share it is going to be a lot different than if you have an IBM with a Fibre Channel LUN. 

Do you have a storage engineer within the company, or who set up the 43TB storage device?   Typically they would handle it.  If not, I would download the documentation for your storage device and work with support if it is not clear.  At this point it is not a VMware task, it is a general storage system provisioning task.  The steps are similar regardless of whether VMware or Windows or Linux is on the other end of the storage.