Questions tagged [vmfs]
The vmfs tag has no usage guidance.
43
questions
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VMware VMFS5 and LUN sizing - multiple smaller datastores, or 1 big datastore?
With VMFS5 no longer having the 2TB limit for a VMFS volume, I'm considering which scenario would be more beneficial overall:-
Less LUNs of larger size, or
More LUNs of smaller size.
In my case, I ...
- 15.5k
6
votes
2
answers
1k
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ESX 5.5 Maximum File Size
We have a ~24TB Datastore (a single LUN mapped via a DAS) which has a VMFS5 Datastore.
My understanding was with ESX 5.5 and VMFS5 you can have file sizes up to 62TB (as per this article: http://kb....
- 1,684
5
votes
4
answers
4k
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ESX hosts lose connectivity with iSCSI SAN LUNs
I've been experiencing this issue for a couple of months now where my ESX hosts lose connectivity with my iSCSI SAN vmfs volumes.
As a results the ESX hosts enter a nonresponsive mode the associated ...
Themist
3
votes
2
answers
397
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Creating new datastore and VMFS [closed]
I was currently working on the ESXi lab and trying to do some work with it. So I have an ESXi that is running on a server and I installed 2 ESXi on it (two ESXi are running on the primary ESXi).
The ...
- 159
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votes
1
answer
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mount vmfs partition in esxi
I lost connection to an iSCSI disk, and after reconnecting the datastore has not mounted. I can see the VMFS partition, but I'm not sure how to mount it manually. The UI options don't seem to offer an ...
- 608
3
votes
1
answer
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How to make sure file in VM's folder is copied with VM when cloning VMWare Virtual Machine
I am running a vmware environment (Version 4 unfortunately) which requires me to use a bios rom file in order to run server 2012. I upload it to the root folder of the VM after creation, before boot ...
- 918
3
votes
2
answers
901
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Is it possible to copy a (.ISO) file that lives on an NTFS file-system within a VMDK file to the datastore VMFS using ESX SSH terminal?
I have several .ISO DVD backup files stored on a virtualized Win2008 server. Is there a simple way to mount the NTFS partition stored in a VMDK file using the ESX SSH terminal so that I can copy it ...
- 146
3
votes
2
answers
1k
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ESXi 4.1 VM gone after hard reboot
I have a serious problem here. After I forced a reboot of a freezed ESXi 4.1 server, a VM is literally gone. When I ssh to the host and run ls -lah inside the datastore, it returnes:
/vmfs/volumes/...
- 31
2
votes
1
answer
4k
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ESXi 4.1: how to make use of an iSCSI LUN bigger than 2 TB?
I have a ESXi servers (4.1 U1) connected to an iSCSI NAS, where 4 LUNS have been defined and presented to this host; all the LUNs are 3 TB in size. ESXi correctly sees the LUNs and acknowledges their ...
- 70.7k
2
votes
2
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Performance stats for ESXi VMs on Openfiler NFS
AFAIK VMWare utilise it's own filesystem vmfs for performance and efficiency reasons.
What will that be if I host my VMs on an Openfiler server which setup as NAS using ext3 filesystem?
Thanks
- 73
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votes
2
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Converting Thick vmdk to thin after Move from Datastore
I am currently running Vcenter 6.7 and ESXi 6.0 with VMFS5 in our infrastructure. And I often have to move VM disks from a DataStore to another in order to free up space.
When using the VCenter MOVE ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
VMWare ESXi 4 VMFS Recovery
Had a big time problem with our ESXi 4 on a IBM X3400 M3 with LSI MegaRaid. 4 x 1TB in RAID 10, for 2 datastores of 1 TB.
Haven't done any maintennance since 2010. My own big sin!
80)
From system ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
2k
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vmkfstools --growfs returns no such file or directory
At a customers site we have 2 (+1 Backup and Test) ESXi server, working independently (without vSphere).
The customers request is to replace an SSD RAID with 500GB with a 2TB one.
ESXi is installed ...
- 41
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
VMWare vmfs vs NFS datastore with vmdk?
I want to add a new harddisk to an existing VM and want the best performance possible. The new hard disk will exist on an NFS datastore. Currently I did the following:
Created new vmdk on NFS ...
- 2,457
1
vote
1
answer
189
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NTFS recovery after installing ESXi
I got this server where I had a Windows 2003 installation on, and I didn't think I needed it anymore, so I desided to install ESXi on it for testing purpose.
But now I just found out that there where ...
1
vote
3
answers
641
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howto access esx filesystem
need to copy VM files (vmdk etc) to usb disk for backup purposes. tried booting with partedmagic 4.9..but cannot access the vm files on disk. any thoughts?
- 1,275
1
vote
1
answer
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Can't mount mount vmfs disk in debian 6 using vmfs-fuse, VMFS unsupported version 5
I have a problem with my server. I recently replaced ESXi for Linux Debian,
and i want to mount my second disk on my debian installation using vmfs-fuse.
I already installed the vmfs-fuse package, and ...
- 11
1
vote
2
answers
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views
What is the largest VMware ESXi 5 guest vm disk size (and how to set it up)?
Is it possible to set up a guest virtual machine with larger than a 2TB drive? For example, from what I read, the largest VMFS size is 2TB. If I have 3 TB VMFS set up on the host ESXi server, how ...
- 1,882
1
vote
1
answer
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Is there a way to check to see if your VMFS partitions are aligned on storage?
I'm running ESX 3.5 currently, and about to set up 4.0 on a new HP EVA4400. Once the servers running 4.0 are up, I'll be migrating all of the 3.5 VMs over to the new datastores using Storage vMotion ...
- 93
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vote
2
answers
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Adding storage to ESXi host
We have two hosts running VMWare ESXi 4.1. Both are connected to a RAID 5 array via iSCSI. We added three more disks to the RAID array. Now I need to assign the new storage somehow to the ESXi hosts. ...
- 246
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ESXi 3.5 Corrupted (flat & delta) vmdk files
Today, I found that one of my VM hosted in ESXi 3.5 cannot be started, the error in /var/log/messages was
Mar 14 00:56:21 vmkernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Mar ...
- 21
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vote
1
answer
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How can i create a VMFS datastore on an ESX 3.5 after ESX installation
I have an ESX 3.5. After adding it to the VC i was getting an error message "The VMware ESX doesnot have a persistent storage". I think its because the VMFS partition has not been created during the ...
thincit
1
vote
1
answer
2k
views
VMFS recovery - how do you proceed?
The more I look into ESX the more often i have to handle cases where the partition table of a disk with a VMFS volume gets corrupted.
The reasons for this can be
* idiot user
* failed update
* power ...
ToreTrygg
1
vote
0
answers
87
views
VMWARE ESXI // Create the datastore with VMFS disk without formating
We've faced the problem.
After the voltage drop, our RAID1 disks in ESXI datastore stopped working.
With the help of the master we've created an exact copy of one of the old disks on the new disk.
It'...
1
vote
0
answers
2k
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VMware ESXi extremely slow Virtual disk performance compared to RDM
I have a ESXi 5.5 server running with a FC SAN.
The FC san is created using an openfiler OS with software RAID and exported with the qlatgt driver. Direct writes to this SAN when no VMFS is used work ...
- 83
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vote
0
answers
721
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ESXi 5.1 local datastore no longer accessable
I'm running ESXi and just recently rebuilt a raid array, and now an existing local datastore is no longer accessable in ESXi. The details:
Original Configuration:
1x usb drive (on the backplane) ...
- 143
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vote
1
answer
590
views
esx4 vmfs3 raid rebuild
I have a ESX 4.1 Server with a storage on RAID 60. After the rebuilding of the RAID the vmdk-files are not working in my VM. On starting VM I have this error:
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/...
- 13
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vote
1
answer
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what are VMware P2V dynamic disk best practices?
We are trying to figure out the best way to do a P2V on one of our main file servers (windows server 2003). Currently the server is physical with an MD1000 hard drive array attached through scsi, we ...
- 1,102
0
votes
1
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Mounting vmfs5 under linux?
Can anyone tell me if there is a safe (i.e. data won't be corrupted) a VMFS 5 filesystem under linux, where the VMFS 5 filesystem is already mounted by several ESXi hosts in a vSphere cluster?
- 2,752
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Lun storage vmfs6 to vmfs5 issue
We have a new environment containing 6 Esxi hosts, and we need to change the LUN format from VMFS6 to VMFS5.
there's no data on the servers, so what is the correct process?
Dismount the LUN (VMFS6) ...
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
4k
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Used disk space in ESXi and OS are wildly different
I am running ESXi 6.5u1 on my server and I have a VM with a thin provision with a max size of 128gb and the VM is reporting having a used space of about 4gb but ESXi is provisioning more than 64gb to ...
- 197
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What are the chances of recovering any data from *-flat.vmdk file which didn't finish coping?
Does anybody know if there is a chance of recovering data from a *-flat.vmdk file from (ESXi 6 /VMFS-5) which didn't finish coping? Unfortunately backup is not available.
The image file was thick ...
- 211
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2
answers
38k
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VMWare Error: Read-only file system during write on
I tried hundreds of forums and posts, but nothing seem to help!
I have vSphere ESXi 5.5. and when starting ESXi the first time it created and formatted a storage automatically.
For some reason I ...
- 648
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2
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8k
views
Is there a tool to browse a VMWare VMFS datastore hard drive on a PC?
I would like my VMWare ESXi 5 server to have a USB-attached HDD datastore which I'd be able to detach, attach to my laptop and browse files on it. As far as I understand, the hard drive is to be ...
- 3,398
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2
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457
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How do you calculate your array throughput with VMFS?
How do you calculate your maximum throughput available for a RAID volume? Do you use your VMFS block size per IOP? Your OS Blocksize? Your array stripe size? Any idea?
- 41
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1
answer
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ESXi 4 Expanding VMFS partition, does order matter?
I'm trying to get ESXi4.0.0 to increase the VMFS partition to match my newly increased RAID 5. I went from ~850GB to 1250GB on the RAID virtual disk, and VMWare is showing the correct amount of space. ...
- 912
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votes
2
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4k
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VMFS undelete in ESX4i [closed]
So, I have this friend that deleted a VMDK that had all his family photos on it. ESX4i did not prompt him that the disk was in use, and he thought he was deleting a disk that belonged to another VM. ...
- 2,904
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How to attach existing VMFS disks to VMWare ESXi
After reinstalling VMWare ESXi server, how can I attach existing VMFS partitions?
I looks like the only way to do this is to have them formatted, and I'd really like to keep the existing data ...
- 506
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votes
1
answer
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Retrieve data from an HD with vmfs partition
My problem is the following:
I have a 1TB HDD with the information of a server that I need now.
I do not know what to do to access the information, inside the HDD there is a vmfs formatted partition ...
0
votes
0
answers
2k
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VMWare - VMFS file system corruption "Failed to check fbb.sf"
I have a server running ESXi 5.5 hosting several VMs.
The host has 2 datastores, one within the local disk, one on an external SAN.
Suddenly we had a problem and restarting the server we were not ...
- 158
0
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1
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270
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VMware ESX 3.x: How to connect two ESX server to a single VMFS datastore on SAN
I'm generally a networking guy but I'm trying to learn VMware. I'm running two ESX 3.x servers with virtual center. I know that it is possible to create redundancy or high availability by configuring ...
0
votes
0
answers
250
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Boot disk with VMFS read/write driver
I want to rule out the ESXi kernel being the cause for my terrible 15MB/s write speed on the local VMFS datastore. I am using a Dell PERC H710 RAID controller, and would like to boot from a boot disk ...
user160910
0
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2
answers
5k
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Can I have different ESX hosts accessing the same LUN over different protocols?
I currently have a cluster of two ESX 3.5U2 servers connected directly via FiberChannel to a NetApp 3020 cluster. These hosts mount four VMFS LUNs for virtual machine storage. Currently these LUNs ...
- 9,144