Once done, the disk should show thick still thin running the inflate command again confirms that it isnt thin any more in addition to the error, the vmdk is still shown as thin in both, powercli and the ui. This course teaches you to manage virtual machines in a vmware vsphere environment. Vmware horizon clients for windows, mac, ios, linux, and android allow you to connect to your vmware horizon virtual desktop from your device of choice giving you onthego access from any location. How to convert vmware virtual disks from thin to thick with the vsphere client. After converting vm disk from thin to thick, it still. A little nugget there, the purpose of running sdelete is to fill all the space on the drive, however, when using nonrandom or zeroed bits, vmware s thin disk technology dedupes the zeroed writes resulting in the wrong outcome a disk that is not full size. Finally, to inflate your virtual machines disk you simply rightclick the. Vmware validated design for softwaredefined data center. I decided to inflate the first of two 4tb thin disks that reside on a nfs raid5 array for to make it easier to keep an eye on space on the array. While eager zeroed thick disks provide the best performance, they occupy the entire space. This means that, if you create a 10 gb virtual disk and place 3 gb of data in it, only the 3 gb of space on the datastore will be used, but the performance will not be as good as with the other two disk types.
Thin vs lazy thick vs eager thick disk performing profiling on all flash arrays. If you created a virtual disk in the thin provision format, you can inflate it to its full size. Inflate thin virtual disks in the vsphere web client vmware docs. A virtual disk that immediately occupies the entire provisioned space is a thick disk. The inflate option converts a thin virtual disk into a thick disk. Hi all, recently one of my colleagues was downloading virtual machines from esxi to his windows 7 laptop and we ran into a strange problem.
This article explains how to convert a thin disk to thick by inflating it to its full size. Vmware inflate disk results in a general system error. Open the virtual machine folder and browse to the virtual disk file that you want to convert. Provisioning virtual machine with the given requirement is a simple task but if any requirement to change the configuration of provisioned virtual machine in future would be bit complex task. The inflated virtual disk occupies the entire datastore space originally provisioned to it. Im looking for a good solution to a vmware esxi environment issue where theres no vcenter available. Solved vmware esxi vmdk inflate canceled half way through. Changing thick or thin provisioning for vmdk vmware hdd. Jul 26, 2012 this shows the filesize to be zero, which is what we were expecting from an, as yet unused, thin provisioned disk. Move vmware esxi vm to new datastore preserve thin provisioning. Vmware delivers virtualization benefits via virtual machine, virtual server, and virtual pc solutions.
Nov 05, 2012 which vsphere client should i use and when. Is there any way possible to cancel this process, the cancel button is not an option. With the disklevel thin provisioning feature, you can create virtual disks in a thin format. It is not installed by default and are not required for the guest os functionality, but offers many benefits, including. How to convert disk from thin to thick in vmware esxi 6. Ultimately, this problem will be fixed when vmware works with storage partners to add new features to the vstorage application programming interfaces, so the storage array knows that deleted files in the virtual disk can be freed up to show the disk s true size. Vmware powercli script to list thin provisioned virtual.
Hi,i was in the process of reclaiming space on the datastore and converting thinprovisionned virtual disks to thick. Inflate a thin provisioned disk, part of vmware vsphere 6. Inflate thin virtual disks in the vsphere web client inflate thin virtual disks in the vsphere web client. Its performing poorly so when i found this out i immediately wanted to move it to a eager disk to help some of the performance issues. When designing virtual disks for your workloads, there are some design qualities to take into consideration, of which performance is the number one denominator. While the new web client has been given feature parity with that of previous vsphere desktop clients. Inflate thin disk a virtual disk in thin format uses only as much space on the datastore as needed. The inflate option converts the disk to thick provisioned. When you inflate a vmdk all youre basically doing is marking the unused space in the vmdk as used on the datastore.
How to shrink decrease a virtual machines disk vmware duration. The applicance is deployed as an open virtualization format ovfformatted vm. Expand the virtual machine folder and browse to the virtual disk file that you want to convert. Join rick crisci for an indepth discussion in this video demo. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable javascript. Its possible to convert a thick provisioned disk to a thin one in a bunch of clicks thanks to the powerful vsphere web client, for vmware esxi virtual machines. When searching the vmware documentation it says to use the inflate process. After converting vm disk from thin to thick, it still shows. The option allocates and zeroes out any blocks that are not already allocated. I have tried to use the vmware converter to v2v a guest and change the disk from thin to thick in the process, and the converter log and results all show the disk was created as a think provisioned disk, but when checking the properties of the disk on the newly converted disk, it still shows as thin provisioned.
Convert thick provisioned disk to thin and vice versa on esxi. Changing the thick or thin provisioning of a virtual disk vmware 22 july 2014 techstuff. Cancellinginterrupting a vdisk inflate vmware communities. Vmware tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance and improves management of the virtual machines guest operating system. Join rick crisci for an indepth discussion in this video, demo. Convert all thin provisioned disks on a vcenter vm to thick eager zero. Lets take an example you have been given a task to create a virtual machine with one vmdk disk of thin provisioned format. Vmware esxi online course about this course this course teaches you to manage virtual machines in a vmware vsphere environment. For a thin virtual disk, esxi provisions the entire space required for the disk s current and future activities, for example 40gb. Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space. Vmware horizon clients for windows, mac, ios, linux, chrome and android allow you to connect to your vmware horizon virtual desktop from your device of choice giving you. There has always been an ongoing debate on whether thin or thick disks are best suited for high performance io workloads.
Before they go with the project to inflate all thin provisioned disks or migrate to thick provisioned lazy zeroed they needed to know how much additional storage. Thin provisioned disks allow it admins to store more virtual machines in the same datastore. The vms had their disks created as thin provisioned and when we try to download it, it would download the entire capacity of the disk. Inflating a thick lazy zeroed disk to thick eager we have a new sql vm that had all its logical drives created in thick lazy zeroed. May 14, 2018 the inflate option converts the disk to thick provisioned. You can convert a thin disk to a thick disk by inflating it to its full size. Vmware powercli script to list thin provisioned virtual disks vmdk one of my clients was concerned about the number of virtual machines that were built with thin provisioned disks. How to convert vmware virtual disks from thin to thick. The thin provisioned disk starts small and at first, uses just as much storage space as it needs for its initial operations. This procedure converts a thin disk to a virtual disk in thick provision format. A little nugget there, the purpose of running sdelete is to fill all the space on the drive, however, when using nonrandom or zeroed bits, vmwares thin disk technology dedupes the zeroed writes resulting in the wrong outcome a disk that is not full size.
It took a couple minutes and said it was successful but the disk was still shown as thin and the. Click the summary tab and, under resources, doubleclick the datastore for the virtual machine to open the datastore browser dialog box click the virtual machine folder to find the virtual disk file you want to convert. Im trying to inflate a thin disk of a running vm located on nfs volume and get an error. With the disk level thin provisioning feature, you can create virtual disks in a thin format. Install vcenter server simple install vcenter server can be installed on a physical server or a virtual machine running windows, so you dont have to use the preconfigured linux. You use the datastore browser to inflate the thin virtual disk. For a thin virtual disk, esxi provisions the entire space required for the disks current and future activities. Apr 20, 2014 when you inflate a vmdk all youre basically doing is marking the unused space in the vmdk as used on the datastore.
Use the vmkfstools command to inflate a thin virtual disk. Does anyone have any experience of interrupting an inflate of a thin virtual disk on vsphere 5. Click here for a list of certified thin clients, zero clients, and other partner solutions for vmware horizon. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using vmware vsphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure. Browse to the datastore on which the virtual disk is stored and find the disk s. Converting vmware thin disks to thick using inflate blah. Install vcenter server simple install vcenter server can be installed on a physical server or a virtual machine running windows, so you dont have to use the preconfigured linuxbased vcenter server appliance. To change the provisioning of a virtual machine base disk from thin to thick from the datastore browser. Change the disk format using storage vmotion if you have multiple datastores connected to your esxi host and another option is to use inflate. Move vmware esxi vm to new datastore preserve thin. Depending on the size of the disk and your underlying storage architecture, this may take quite some time.
Is there a command line that i can run directly on the host to verify if the disk is currently thin or thick format. Inflate thin virtual disks in the vsphere web client vmware. Thick vs thin disks and all flash arrays vmware vsphere blog. Vmware esxi online course vmware esxi geek university. Rightclick the virtual disk file and select inflate. Getharddisk vm app02 name hard disk 2 setharddisk inflate.
The option might not be available if the virtual disk is thick or when the virtual machine is running. The fact that you still have the inflate option makes me think that esxi doesnt change the type from thin to thick until after the inflate is complete. However if you can shut the vms down, cant you create a new thick disk and copy things across manually. There should be no snapshots and the conversion is performed on the base disk. Convert a virtual disk from thin to thick in the vsphere web client however, when i rightclick the. Changing the thick or thin provisioning of a virtual disk. Vmkfstools examples working with virtual disks buildvirtual. This option converts a thin virtual disk to eagerzeroedthick, preserving all existing data. So as the title says i was dicking around in esxi and i accidentally clicked the inflate option on my vmdk file for my ubuntu server. The inflate process ran fine, but after completing it still shows as thin under vsphere client vm summary edit settings disk. Rightclick the virtual disk file and select the inflate option. However, the thin disk uses only as much storage space as the disk needs for its initial operations. Inflate thin virtual disks in the vsphere web client. How to convert vmware virtual disks from thin to thick with.
May 20, 2014 thin vs lazy thick vs eager thick disk performing profiling on all flash arrays. Yep, i stopped a vm, browse to the datastore and right click. This action preserves any existing data on the virtual disk. Thats probably occurred to you already but i cant be sure, and its the only solution i can think of for you. If you created a virtual disk in the thin format, you can convert the thin disk to a virtual disk in thick provision format. In an effort to minimise downtime i decided the best thing to do was use the inflate option in the datastore for that vmdk this requires the vm to. Inflate virtual disk unable to access file volname vmnamevmname. For a thin virtual disk, esxi provisions the entire space required for the disk s current and future activities. Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space using thin provisioned virtual disks can provide many benefits. Its also possible to perform the inverse operation.
Inflated disk still shows thin techexams community. While i knew this was grossly oversized i wasnt able to do much about it at the time so i thin provisioned it. Convert a virtual disk from thin to thick in the vsphere web client if you created a virtual disk in the thin provision format, you can convert it to the thick provision format. Disk options are quite limited on the web ui i dont use vsphere either. To convert, or inflate, the virtual disk file so that it is changed to the eagerzeroedthick format we can use the inflatedisk option. Make sure that the datastore where the virtual machine resides has enough space. Howewer, this doesnt seem to be a problem, as the machines are working fine. What is the best way to shrink a thin provisioned disk. Vmware powercli script to list thin provisioned virtual disks.
Not only do they allow overprovisioning, but with the prevalence of flash storage, performance degradation really isnt a concern like it used to be. Converting vmware thin disks to thick using inflate blah, cloud. Hello, im trying to convert a virtual disk from thin provisioning to thick provisioning using the vmware esxi 6. Convert vmware vmdk disk format thin to thick vmware arena. Thin provisioning can be done on the virtual disk level so per disk thin provisioning or you at the storage array level.