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2 Replies Last post: Sep 4, 2008 12:01 PM by Kenji Nozaki  
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Kenji Nozaki
2 posts since
Jun 26, 2008

Jun 26, 2008 12:50 PM

Datastore disk expansion on ESX


We currently have an ESX server cluster that has vdisks attached to them through an EVA SAN. Typically when we want to increase the capacity of a SAN vdisk on one of our Windows servers we expand the disk on the EVA/SAN and then use the diskpart utility to "see" the increased storage. I was hoping someone could provide some guidance as to how to do this for the datastores on the ESX Host servers themselves since they are running Linux. I've expanded the actual vdisk being presented to the ESX server on the SAN, but now need the OS to see the new capacity. Can using the vmkfstools accomplish this or is there another utility that I should be employing? Any help will be much appreciated!

Kenji

Tags: esx, server, storage, san, disk, extend, expand, increase
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Russ Becker
2 posts since
Sep 10, 2007
1. Sep 4, 2008 11:39 AM in response to: Kenji Nozaki
Re: Datastore disk expansion on ESX

Yes, vmkfstools will accomplish this. Try the following:

Login to host using account with admin privileges.

Change directory to /vmfs/volumes/ and SAN volume. Locate folder named for VM and ‘cd' into it to locate vmdk file.

Type in vmkfstools -X nng ./name.vmdk where nn is the new larger drive size, and name is the name of the VM.

I hope this helps.

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Kenji Nozaki
2 posts since
Jun 26, 2008
2. Sep 4, 2008 12:01 PM in response to: Russ Becker
Re: Datastore disk expansion on ESX

Thanks Russ! My objective was to increase one of our host ESX datastores. After speaking w/ tech support from vmware, I elected to create a new host datastore, migrated the VMs to the new store, and blew away the old store, effectively "increasing" this host store. I was told that the only way to expand an existing ESX host datastore was to use extents, which they discouraged me from doing.

In the future if I need to extend the disk size of an existing VM drive I'll give your technique a shot.

Thanks again!

Kenji

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