Need some advice on hard disk hot-add

[vRayL2]

Hello All,

VMware vCenter Server 4.0.0
vSphere 4 Enterprise
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1 (32-Bit)
VM Version: 7

Planning to add another 500GB virtual hard disk to this file server. Considering hot-add (for the first time) to avoid down time. I don't expect problems, but it's always good to be prepared.

I would like to hear your best practices / lessons learned / actual experiences. What precautions should be taken? etc...

Thanks to all who reply!

[vmroyale]

As long as you add the second disk to an existing disk controller, you should have no problems at all. Add it, then rescan in Windows and partition it.

[vRayL2]

This will be the third drive if that matters. I plan only to add the hard drive, but I'm not sure about your "existing disk controller" point. Is that something VMware is going to do as part of the add?

Here is the existing/planned layout:

Virtual Device Node

SCSI (0:0) Hard disk 1 <-- Existing for drive C:\
SCSI (0:1) Hard disk 2 <-- Existing for drive E:\
SCSI (0:2) Hard disk 3 <-- Planned for new drive F:\

Thanks for the reply

[vmroyale]

You will want to add it to 0:3 or 0:x where x is a higher number. You won't be able to add it to 1:0 or any controller besides 0.