HI,
I have a 400GB LUN that i have mounted in VI Client as datastore (size 399,2GB). I want to dedicate that VMFS for a D drive on a VM, how big can i make it? If i give it the whole space, i guess it will not be good because there wont be anymore space for metadata.
I usually leave between 10-15% of Datastore uncommitted. If you intend to use snapshots you might want more free space.
I usually leave between 10-15% of Datastore uncommitted. If you intend to use snapshots you might want more free space.
Well the maximum size of VMDK you can create is directly related to the block size in your VMFS partition,
The Default size is 1MB with a block size of 1MB you will be able to create a VMDK of a maximum size of 256GB.
the other block sizes are
2MB = VMDK size 512GB
4MB = VMDK size 1024GB or 1TB
8MB = VMDK size 2048GB or 2TB
so the answer is if you are using the default block size 256GB, else you will be able to create a VMDK to the full size of the LUN.
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Which addresses whether or not he/she can create a VMDK file to fill their whole datastore (I am guessing not). Still not a good idea to commit all available space on a datastore to vmdk files.
Why not use RDM (raw disk mapping)? The benefits are: better performance and control from a SAN. If you have a Netapp, equallogic or other SAN infrastructure that supports LUN snapshots you can do lots of advance tasks in seconds. (LUN cloning, time based snapshots, LUN resize, share LUN with other hosts (clustering) )
but you are still limited to 2TB
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Tom Howarth
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