Extend VMFS Partition

[Lyle_Magdalinsk]

I originally created a 100 GB SAN Vdisk to be used by 4 ESX 3.0.1 hosts.

I have now expanded the disk array to 500 GB.

Is there a way in ESX to expand the VMFS partition without using Extents or destroying the existing VMFS datastore?

The ESX hosts see the new size but won't use anything above the original 100GB.

I'm not trying to expand a .VMDK file.

Looking for something similar to Microsoft's DISKPART EXTEND command for ESX.

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately there is no way to do this without using Extents. You have to delete the old VMFS volume and re-create it. You can shutdown the VM's, migrate them to different VMFS storage if you have it (ie. Local), delete the old SAN volume, create a new one and then migrate them back.

[kyfbof]

I originally created a 100 GB SAN Vdisk to be used by 4 ESX 3.0.1 hosts. I have now expanded the disk array to 500 GB. Is there a way in ESX to expand the VMFS partition without using Extents or destroying the existing VMFS datastore?

Carve up the add'l disk. Figure out the lun assignment. Then add it to the

existing one. Command line version would be:

vmkfstool --extendfs <orig dev> <add'l dev> # a dev is usually in a form of vmhba?:c:t:d

Or the MUI version would be:

Navigate your VIC session to Inventory view;* Select the ESX host on the left pane and Cofiguration tab on the right pane; Select Storage (SCSI, SAN, and NFS) option; Select the datastore that you want to increase and click Properties...; In the new pop-up window, click Add Extent...; *Select the new disk with the newly-assigned lun id;

The ESX hosts see the new size but won't use anything above the original 100GB.

If you have done the above step and did not see the add'l storage, then reboot the ESX hosts. That works in our case, but I am looking for better solution. I'm not trying to expand a .VMDK file. Looking for something similar to Microsoft's DISKPART EXTEND command for ESX.