Copying Thin Provisioned Hard Disks off ESXi 4.0 Server

[CanuckisH]

I am setting up an ESXi server to function in branch offices, and the plan is to deploy the machines with "Thin Provisioned" hard disks. The reason for this is the VM's running in the branch are application servers and incase of disk failure I want to be able to connect to the ESXi server using FastSCP or any other tool and copy smaller VM disks back on to the server quicker as the branch pipes are only a few megs thick.

The issue I am having is that as soon as I copy the file off the ESXi server using vSphere client, the file size grows to its full size (30GB vs 5 GB thin disk). Are there any tools I can use that will allow me to copy the disk in its "Thin" state, I have noticed that when I connect with FastSCP it sees the disk as 30GB (thick state) to a Windows machine were I will back it up.

Thanks in advance for any help

[DSTAVERT]

You will need to use the command line vmkfstools to make thin copies. Trilead has a windows backup tool that enables "clones" but I don't know whether it copies thin.

[CanuckisH]

Trilead's latest product does not see the fiels as 5GB the way I do in vSphere, it sees them as 30 GB copies, thanks for the idea, but looks like its not the answer.

[DSTAVERT]

vmkfstools will do the dead. Clone and thin are options and it does work.

[DSTAVERT]

Have a look at the ghettoVCB script in the forums. If you need to use Windows add the the microsoft SFU (services for unix) and enable NFS. Then you can script the thin clone to your windows machine.

[bulletprooffool]

Are you copying, or moving the machines?

If you're moving them, do it with storage vMotion . . .you'll get prompted as to whether you'd like to have the destination as thin, or thick disks.

[CanuckisH]

Thanks for all the helpful ideas, I will look into the GhettoVCB script and see if that will work. I do need to copy the file to a windows server, as its my hope to have it as a VM repositary, it may eventually become another ESXi host so that I can do more maintenance on the VM's.

I was not aware that "Services for Unix" on windows allows me to format an NFS partition, that would probably do the trick when used with VMK command line app.