Upgrading VMFS3 to VMFS5

[Gonzouk]

Hello,

We have upgraded to 5.5 U2 and (previously on 4.1) and the consultant I worked with said I should just upgrade the datastores that are on 1mb block sizes but clicking the button, but ones that are on 2mb or 4mb I should create new VMFS5 datastores and svMotion servers into these new datastores and delete the old datastore.

Can anyone explain why?  I think I will gain space if I do this to datastores set to 2mb or above, but not 1mb datastores, but dont understand why.

Thanks

[rcporto]

Since the release of VMFS 5, there is no more different block sizes, the unique block size now is 1MB and can create very large files. Although you can upgrade VMFS 3 to 5 online, the recommendation is always move the VMs out of old datastore and recreate them using VMFS 5, due the fact that some thing are not changed when you upgrade the VMFS, this way you will not get all enhancements of VMFS 5.

I will recommend you take a look at this blog post: vSphere 5.0 Storage Features Part 1 - VMFS-5 | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

[Gonzouk]

It seems many Datastores that have been on the 1mb block size have been upgrade from VMFS3 to VMFS5 and not recreated, how would I know now which ones to recreate as they say VMFS5?

I had created new VMFS5 DTs and storage vMotioned server into the new DT and deleted the old VMFS3 DT, but a previous engineer told me he just started to upgrade, so I don't know which ones he did.

Thanks

[rcporto]

Take a look at this blog post: http://www.pkguild.com/2013/07/how-to-detect-vmfs3-and-vmfs3-upgraded-datastores-with-powercli-now-w...

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