How to clone thick prov disk to thin when not enough space

[Tracyp]

Hi all.

I have a need to change a thick provisioned disk to a thin.

I get the process of using CONVERT to clone the disk, swap to the new disk in the VM settings then delete the original thick disk HOWEVER even when it is thin the disk will be bigger than the available space I have left.

Is it possible to do this and have the new "cloned" thin disk saved to external storage just until I can then delete the original thich disk and move the thin disk back to the volume??

I am running ESX/vsphere 6 on a IBM Blade S.

thanks

Tracy

[SavkoorSuhas]

Hello

Why not perform a storage vMotion to convert disk from thick to thin ?

Suhas

[Tracyp]

Hi Suhas

so that wont require any extra space during the convert process?

How would I go about that?

thanks

[a_p_]

Without sufficient free disk space on a datastore, it might be an option to export he VM as OVF (from the vSphere client's "File" menu), delete the VM on the host, and finally import the VM again, selecting thin provisioned virtual disk(s). If you are going to consider this, make sure that the VM doesn't have active snapshots, and the virtual CD-ROM drive is set to Client-Device (i.e. nothing connected). If you want/need to preserve the VM's UUID and MAC address, download/backup the VM's .vmx and .vmxf files prior to deleting the VM. Once you've deployed the VM from the OVF, remove the VM from the inventory, upload the two files (replacing the existing ones), and add the VM to the inventory again by right clicking the .vmx file in the Datastore Browser.

André

[SavkoorSuhas]

If you have another datastore for this ESXi host with enough space to accommodate the thick disk of this VM.

Then:

1. Right click the VM > Migrate > Change Datastore

2. Advanced > Change Destination for the VMDK you want to convert to thin and Disk type as thin from drop down

3. Once VMDK is moved to a different datastore its disk type is changed to thin

4. Then you can storage vMotion this VMDK back to your original datastore.

Suhas