We have centos 5 and 7 running on vmware , in thick provision .
Just would like to confirm , as the vmware storage is full , I would like to release the space from each centos server , is there any way to reduce the volumn size from centos ? even if yes , as the vm host is thick provision , the released space will be added to unallocated group of vmware .
what I want is increase the size of vmware storage .
patrickchan701 Best option to reclaim the space from any VM with thick provisioning is to V2V and then you can decide the size of the target disk. Once V2V is complete validate the servers and release the space by removing old VM's.
I hope I was able to guide you in right direction.
You will need to download VMWare Standalone Converter, Install it on a workstation or server, power off the VM that you want to shrink, Run VMware Converter. For the source you will need to select powered off Virtual machine and same for destination. When you get to the part about datastore, you will want to go into advanced and change the datastore from Thick to Thin.
Just make sure you point the destination VM to a location that has enough space. Oh and make sure you name it something different, vCenter does not like duplicate names.
Do you mean I have to do two steps , firstly, run linux command to shrink the size , then use converter for V2V ?
not required, refer this blog https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/convert-a-physical-linux-server-to-vmware-vm
Yes, you are going to need to shrink the file system inside of linux first, then do the V2V conversion.