VMDK is larger than the maximum size

[2012hplp2475w02]

Hello,

We are actually in the process of upgrading from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.  We have VMs that were running in vSphere 4.1 on a VMFS3 datastore and we moved them in vSphere 5 on a VMFS5 datastore.  We did that by shuting down the VM, removed it from inventory in vSphere 4.1, add it to inventory in vSphere 5 and do a sVmotion from the VMFS3 datastore to the VMFS5 datastore, then we booted up the machines in the new datastore.  Both vSphere 4.1 and 5 have access to VMFS3 datastores.  Only vSphere 5 has access to VMFS5 datastores.

We use NetApp SnapDrive 6.4.1 to take backups of our VMs.  Since we moved the machine to vSphere 5, we are receiving this kind of error message in vCenter :

"Reconfigure virtual machine SD100002_Donneee File [Datastore VMFS3]Server_Data/Server_Data_- SD_NetApp_dgkvhJkZb5ZR_5.vmdk is

larger than the maximum size supported by datastore 'Datastore VMFS3'"

It seems that there still a reference to a file in the old datastore.  Should we edit the vmx file?  Is there anything we can do to be 100% that all the files have been moved to the VMFS5 datastore?

Thank you.

[vmroyale]

Should we edit the vmx file?  Is there anything we can do to be 100% that all the files have been moved to the VMFS5 datastore?

Viewing the .VMX file would be where to start and then check any datastores listed in the .VMX to be sure that everything is where you expect it to be.

[jeff9565]

By SnapDrive, do you mean SMVI?  How exactly is SnapDrive involved in this configuration?

Also, how big does the vmdk in question show up when you browse the datastore?

[2012hplp2475w02]

Hello vmroyale,

We checked the vmx file and there is nothing that reffer to the VMFS3 datastore.

[2012hplp2475w02]

Yes I mean SMVI.  SMVI is an older version of SnapDrive.  SnapDrive is use to take a snapshot of the VM in order to restore a single file if needed.

The error message seems to refer to a VMDK that no longer exist.  If I look at the machine settings, this VMDK does not exist.

The machine has physical RDM that were convert to VMDK, then convert back to physical RDM.  Since then we live the problem as describe above.

[vlho]

Hi all,

I have had similar problem. I had to convert vmdk files to smaller size.

You can see in KB:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101238...

this information, I quote:

"For ESXi 5.0, this error occurs when any individual flat .vmdk file exceeds 2,181,972,430,848 bytes.
This is the size generated when Adding a virtual disk with size of 1.984492366201720 TB is specified.
Maximum file size of vmdk is 2TB-512B which is 2,199,023,254,528 B"

I don't know why VMware allows us to create vmdk file with size 2TB-512B = 2,199,023,254,528 B and at the same time VMware doesn't allow to create snapshot of vmdk files with size greater than 2,181,972,430,848 B.