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6 Replies Last post: Aug 7, 2008 1:45 PM by Srinivas Vivek  
Click to view karuppaiah@wipro.com's profile Candidate 1 posts since
Sep 24, 2007

Sep 24, 2007 12:12 AM

How to expand the VM disk in esx 3


Hi All ,

Good day

Pls help me to expand novel VM disk size in ESX 3.

Recently we have upgraded the esx from 2.5.3 to 3.

Pls provide the steps to expand the disk. Pls let me know, any prerequisites for increasing the disk.

Thanks,

Murugan.


Click to view wkdixon's profile Candidate 1 posts since
Sep 10, 2007
1. Sep 25, 2007 10:30 AM in response to: karuppaiah@wipro.com
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3

You need to shutdown the VM

Then log on to the console of the Host server

Change to the directory that contains the VMDK (you can just pass the full path to the command line but I find this less confusing)

Type the command: vmkfstools -X <size> G <VMDK file name> (note that G stands for gigabytes so to expand a disk to 32 GB it would simply be vmkfstools -X 32G some.vmdk).

Type ls -lh and you should see the VMDK is now that size.

At this point you must use the OS tools to in order to see the additional space. I don't kow how this is done in Novel but in Windows I use the 'diskpart' tool.

Good luck

p.s. of course you make a backup first ;)

Click to view dansolo's profile Candidate 6 posts since
Sep 10, 2007
2. Sep 26, 2007 8:37 AM in response to: karuppaiah@wipro.com
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3

Two tidbits to add.

1. Make sure that ALL snapshots are committed before you expand the disk or you will have issues.

2. We use a bootable linux tool called gparted to expand the partition. Works wonders. My Windows systems run without a hitch.

Click to view marcel s.'s profile Candidate 5 posts since
Dec 21, 2007
3. Dec 21, 2007 6:53 AM in response to: karuppaiah@wipro.com
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3

the before mentioned vmfsktools work perfectly, if your not a pro in linux command line use, you could possibly also use the vmware converter to expand your vm.

anyhow, the command line description is way faster when u know what you are doing ^^

Click to view Pakalapati Edukondalu's profile Candidate 1 posts since
Dec 20, 2007
4. Dec 26, 2007 11:55 PM in response to: dansolo
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3

Yes.. I also used gparted tool. It works nicely. But take a snap shot of the guest OS immediate after disk expansion, because the old snapshot (the Guest Os snap shot before disk expansion) will not work to revert.


Chrees

Edu ..

Click to view David Waldron's profile Candidate 7 posts since
Feb 20, 2008
5. Feb 20, 2008 7:24 AM in response to: karuppaiah@wipro.com
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3
If you are running ESX 3.5/VC 2.5, VC now has the option to extend the VMDK file through the GUI as well. I've used it a number of times so far and haven't had any problems.

--Dave
Click to view Srinivas Vivek's profile Candidate 2 posts since
Feb 26, 2008
6. Aug 7, 2008 1:45 PM in response to: karuppaiah@wipro.com
Re: How to expand the VM disk in esx 3
Use Free VM Converter. Using this you can shrink too with ease
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