VMFS Partition alignment

Similar Questions

• Extend VMFS partition alignment vs. partition

  I have a (openfiler) iSCSI storage and a host ESXi (running on its local disk) for testing.

  I tried to create VM customers and together start iSCSI. The problem I have is the alignment of partition and extend VMFS partition.

  What happens:

  If I want to align parititon, I need to go up and format the LUN with the VMFS. Therefore, the VMFS partition size is fixed. I'm able to increase the size of the LUN, but I can't do anything with regard to the size of the partition resizing VMFS.

  Another way is to report the storage for the VM client on raw storage. But this way, I can't align the partition because I can't use fdisk on raw storage on CLI.

  My question is: if I want to run SQL server, for example, and want to align the disk for the storage of data and able to rescale the size, how can I do?

  Thank you.

  I don't know exactly what you're asking, but "growing" a VMFS volume does not resize the partition, it is done by adding one "scope" (another partition) and then ESX (i) of the volume manager puts the two partitions together to make a large volume.

• VMFS partition alignment and recommendation of the storage provider

  In the literature of my storage provider it says they use a band of 256 KB size, and it's a good approach to set the offset to 256 KB (or 512 sectors) when creating VMFS volumes.

  "When you use the VI Client, the new partition is automatically set to an offset of 128 sectors = 64 k." But,
  in fact, this configuration is not ideal when you are using the DS8000 storage disk. Because the
  DS8000 uses more large block sizes, the offset must be set to at least the size of the stripe. For
  RAID 5 and RAID 10 in the attachments of open systems, the allocation size is 256 KB, and it's a good
  approach to set the offset to 256 KB (or 512 sectors). You can configure individual compensation
  that from the ESX/ESXi server command line. »

  I'm guessing that they always use the old VMFS3 information above?

  Now with vSphere 5.x and VMFS5 the offset is to the sector 2048 (or 1024KB)

  Question is if I go with vSphere 5.x VMFS5 and create the volume VMFS via vCenter VI Client will be I'm always perfectly aligned with my storage or should I still manually create VMFS volumes with starting with sector 512 (256 KB)?

  Thank you for your answers!

  1 024 KB alignment is a multiple of many sizes of block by default if it guarantees a correct alignment for all types of storage where the result of 1024 / 'stripe size' is an integer value.

  André

• The VMFS partitions and ESX in MUV upgrades

  Back in the day when you installed ESX it deems any VMFS partition is priese formatting for you even if you had all your machines on them

  I intend to upgrade ESX 4.0 to 4.1 using AUVS that resembles a simple process.  Anyone know if:

  1. it clears the local VMFS partition?

  2. He wipes SAN VMFS partitions that it finds?

  Thank you

  Stu

  N ° you don t be vmfs http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1022140 loss

• expand a vmfs partition running

  I have a HP EVA 4400 iSCSI, which has 2 partitions vmfs (vdisks).  It is formatted with a block size of 1 MB, the other is the block size of 8MB.

  My ultimate goal is to have all the vm that are on the score of 1 MB on the partition of 8 MB, blow the partition of 1 MB and while space on a partition of 8MB.

  I never increased an existing VMFS partition, so I don't know what to expect (I've never had need of).  Is it as simple as deleting (using 4.1) 1 MB one, adding that the space in the vdisk the 8 MB one and then saying ESXi to increase?  It will use anything he can find, or what I have to tell him how to increase by?

  Are the virtual machine that will be on the secure partition of 8 MB?  I don't have a quick way of enclosing all down and save them.

  Any help would be appreciated.

  The way I read your message, it's that you want to migrate to the size of block 8MB data store, delete the data size of block 1 store MB and have its place to extend the data store of 8 MB for a larger size.    If that's what you want to do then you should give this blog post read, http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/03/26/resizing-your-vmfs-the-right-way-exploring-the-next-version-of-esxvcenter/.

  If you have found this device or any other useful post please consider the use of buttons useful/correct to award points

• It is possible to expand a vmfs partition?

  Well, here's my problem, I have 2 esx servers, connected to DS3400, people who originally this set up only bought 4 disks and created a raid 5 1.6 to VMFS partition. The guy he filled and I was running out of space.

  So I bought 2 more disks. I added the readers to the controller and added to the raid, creating a bigger raid.

  I returned in vsphere and saw that there was free space and I tried to extend VMFS partition but I couldn't? I thought that I was not supposed to create a new measure.

  In my frustration, I said F and I just created a second logical drive, formatted as VMFS and added and moved some of the VMm on the new 800 GB partition.

  Now, I bought 4 records more than daughter upward the ds3400. I'm trying to add them to the table.

  I need to make the a VM on the origial 1.6 TB of greater. So I don't want to add a third partition, instead of this I would really be able to extend the partition of 1.6 to 3.2 to with new readers, I add.

  Does anyone know how or if I can do this? Its going to take some time to add the new disks and I need the extra space pronto.

  When I'm in the IBM Storage Manager I see

  Unconfigured space 1.2 to (always adding these readers)

  RAID 5 2.8 TB

  -Original DS (1.6 TB)

  -1 (837 GB) second one I did

  -Release the 418GB capacity (one of the 3 new discs add)

  Once I get the other 3 dirves, I'll have another 1.6 to release capacity on the raid. This is where I'm stuck, how to use that to extend the original 1.6 to vmfs.

  Thank you people a bunch.

  It is possible to expand a VMFs partition - but the problem is that you can not access a logical unit number is greater than 2 TB - 512 B and the largest virtual disk is the same 2 TB - 512 according to http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf - using extensions you can create a volume of 64 KB-16 TB per individual LUN stacking

  If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points marking the answer correct or useful

  Session data >

• Convert VMFS partitions/data?

  Hi again!

  IV been playing with Esxi, Hyper-V and Xenserver for some time now. Finally, I decided to go with esxi for my virtualization project but there are 2 questions, I need to get an answer first.

  1. None of my raid cards that I have at the moment are detected by esxi. I read that theres a lack in the nucleus of esxi so that you can't do software raid; is that correct?

  2. I 3xTB drivers where partitions are encrypted with truecrypt, what is the easiest way to convert these VMFS partitions so I can use them in esxi?

  Thanks for your help!

  Hello

  As far as I know, you have two main options:

  (1) create a virtual machine with a normal vdisk (hard) to place the data of truecrypt. Then make a transfer to network on the virtual machine to a system that has access to the unencrypted data. Finally the date of stay to the virtual machine without encryption vdisk

  (2) create a virtual machine and install the truecrypt sotfware. After that add truecrypt disks (perhaps is better to merge all data from a larger drive?) to the esxi machine. The esxi should see the disk (s) connected (s) as LUN SCSI/SATA. Then, create the physical (s) or the discs as raw device mapping (RDM). In my humble VIEW in your scenario is preferable to create RDM in physical mode. Finally using the truecrypt software you should be able to access the encrypted data.

  Here, you can check a few RDM tutorials:

  http://www.avatir.com/HOWTO-RDM-on-local-SATA-disks-in-ESXi/

  http://VM-help.com/esx40i/SATA_RDMs.php

  http://ServerFault.com/questions/105652/assign-and-remove-multiple-LUNs-from-VMs-on-ESXi-4

  It may be useful

  A saludo/best regards,.

  Pablo

  Please consider providing any useful answer. Thank you!! - Por favor considered premiar las useful responses. MUCHAS gracias!

• Extend an existing VMFS partition

  Is it possible to increase the size of a VMFS partition without using extensions in ESX 3 U4?  Everything I see in the manual server configuration is to use extensions.

  Adam

  No, 3.5 cannot extend VMFS partition. The only way - create new old size desired, migrate all virtual machines and delete data store.

  ---

  VMware vExpert 2009

  http://blog.vadmin.ru

• ESXi 3.5 - clean installation, it will wipe existing vmfs partition?

  So let's say I have a U3 3.5i ESXi server is installed on a single table of RAID 5.  I want to do a clean reinstall using U4.  When I installed U3 it parititoned discs automatically, so when I go to install U4 will be it preserve the current vmfs partition or is it delete and then recreate a new?

  The reason I ask this is just in the preparation of a time where a firmware update could possibly fail (do not assume that it will be, just want to have a plan in case something goes wrong).  Just want to be sure I can do a reinstall with/without losing existing virtual machines.  I'm not worried about having to reconfigure everything - not a big deal.

  Thank you!

  You have the ability to clean any vmfs partition, or leave them alone.  It is up to you to destroy the existing, which you do not want if there's vm is here, or leave them alone.

  -KjB

  VMware vExpert

• All gone VMFS Partition tables! on LUN

  Today, we had a 20 TB of data problems and all partition tables VMFS got blownen now. All ESX servers were not able to see the data stores. Everything is back to normal now, but I have a question, not even a VM has stopped working? How is that possible? VMware said eventually they would have all the blue screen, but the LUN was down to 2-4 hours and not even a VM is down, we have more than 300 + VM can someone explain how it worked?   I guess they were running in the memory cache and depending on the amount of data is being written depends on when they started bluescreen? How does it work?  I am pleased, that was the case...

  Hello

  Discover the recovery VMFS partitions for assistance. SMV will stay running because they know where they write on the disc through a caching mechanism. The disk data were not deleted, only the partition table.

  Best regards
  Edward L. Haletky
  VMware communities user moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
  ====
  Author of the book ' VMWare ESX Server in the enterprise: planning and securing virtualization servers, Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
  Blue gears and SearchVMware Pro items - top of page links of security virtualization - Security Virtualization Round Table Podcast

• VMFS Partition 5 alignment

  Hello

  Am I right in thinking that now with 5 VMFS using the unified 1 MB block size and as long as you create the data through the viclient store it is not necessary to align the partitions as you used to have to ESX3, 4?

  Thank you

  Gregg

  Cormac Hogan wrote an article on this subject:

  http://blogs.VMware.com/vSphere/2011/08/vSphere-50-storage-features-part-7-GPT.html

• Recovery raid-formatted vmfs partition

  Faced with a situation where the vmfs volume has been formatted through (non-destructive, that I hope) raid controller

  ESXi 6, improved 5 so I guess it was a TPG

  I could have esx5 installed on this raid volume so the vmfs volume is not at the beginning. I tried to use vmfs-tools but don't like that the partition is not formatted.

  Any help would be appreciated - how can I recreate the partition information?

  Thanks - Joe

  partition-> Info

  Disk /dev/disks/naa.600605b006bb16c01a73aed623fd738a: 1999,3 GB, 1999307276288 bytes

  255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243068 cylinders

  Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  /Dev/disks/NAA.600605b006bb16c01a73aed623fd738a disk does not contain a valid partition table

  [root@localhost:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600605b006bb16c01a73aed623fd738a

  unknown

  243068 255 63 3904897024

  You should always use the getUsableSectors command to find the endsector - it's probably a good idea to use an ESXi 5.0 feature.
  Or tell me the exact size of the volume and I'm trying to use a vmdk in the size of your raid to get the value.pe

  Do not hesitate to call me on Skype 'sanbarrow' If you need help

  Ulli

• Problem of recreate VMFS partitions

  Hello.

  I have a SAN disk on which all partitions are defective.

  I need to mount them and copy the data somewhere else.

  I used: KB VMware: Re-create a missing partition of VMFS datastore in VMware vSphere 5.0/5.1/5.5

  It works on one of the score, but all the others, it gives the error:

  partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880622a4c141945bb8d0110ad TPG ' 1 2048 167792640 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0.

  TPG

  0 0 0 0

  167792640 2048 1 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0

  Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

  AddNewPartitions: ped_partition_new failed

  So I do the following:

  offset = "128-2048"; for dev in ' esxcfg-scsidevs - l | grep "device to the Console." AWK {' print $3' '}'; make disk = $dev; echo $disk; partedUtil getptbl $disk; {for i "echo $offset"; echo "offset Checking to $i: '; s hexdump-n4 $((0 x 100000 +(512*$i))) $disk; hexdump-n4 s $((0 x 1300000 +(512*$i))) $disk; hexdump - C n 128 s $((0x130001d + (512*$i))) $disk; done;} | grep b 1-A 5 d00d. echo "---------------------"; fact

  It gives me the information for all my partitions.

  I take one:

  partedUtil getUsableSectors /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880624a8aebf3a4348701b016

  the result is:

  34 3221237726

  partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880624a8aebf3a4348701b016

  the result is:

  TPG

  200512 255 63 3221237760

  I run the command:

  partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880624a8aebf3a4348701b016 TPG ' 1 2048 3221237726 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0.

  and

  vmkfstools v

  And when I rescan the paths in the client, I can use the partition.

  But when I do the same thing with any other partition it do not work...

  partedUtil getUsableSectors /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880622a4c141945bb8d0110ad

  34 167792606

  partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880622a4c141945bb8d0110ad

  TPG

  10444 255 63 167792640

  partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6090a08880622a4c141945bb8d0110ad TPG ' 1 2048 167792640 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0.

  TPG

  0 0 0 0

  167792640 2048 1 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0

  Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

  AddNewPartitions: ped_partition_new failed

  any idea?

  Just a quick question, why - on the command failed - did you use the output of the command getptbl , rather than getUsableSectors?

  André

• VMFS partition table corruption? Need help to retrieve data

  My House ESXi 5.1 was installed on HP Microserver G7. Hypervisor on USB-flash, datastore on Adaptec 3405.

  After some problems of power electro Microserver is will not start and I have chosen to build the new server on Microserver Gen8. I moved Adaptec and disks in the new box, installed new ESXi 5.5 U1 (HP image) on USB and after reboot did not store data :-(.

  After some research, I found that ESXi is not see any partition table on this raid array:

  
  

  partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0

  unknown

  728422 255 63 11702108160

  BUT! I tried to start the server of linux liveCD with vmfs-tools 0.2.5 installed partition mounted with vmfs-fuse and able to see the data! But cannot copy all important vmdk (see below).

  debugvmfs is also show me some useful information:

  Volume Version: 14

  Version: 54

  Label: STORE

  Mode: public

  UUID: 4f2ac538-58c181cf-arms-441ea13ee615

  Creation date: 2012-02-02 23:17:44

  Block size: 1 MiB

  Subblock size: 8 KiB

  Size of header of the FDC: 64 KiB

  County of FDC Bitmap: 64

  and it's very strange

  debugvmfs/dev/sda1 see the lvm.extent [0]

  Device: / dev/sda1

  UUID: 4f2ac4da-8de4b166-a-441ea13ee615 848

  LUN: 0

  Version: 5

  Name:

  Size: 459.99 GiB

  NUM. Segments: 22319

  First Segment: 0

  Last Segment: 22318

  
  

  because I don't know that I don't create scopes.

  
  

  Also, there are two vmdk files on more than 256 GB data store and it cannot copy because of the limitation of vmdk-tools :-(.

  
  

  I tried to do a magic (like this - partedUtil setptbl "/ vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0" GPT "1 2048 11702099429 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0""), but without success;-(.)

  
  

  All the suggestions, guys?
  

  Finally!

  Found that was an "Intel VT - d" enabled in the BIOS. After disable it everything is cool.

  It looks like Adaptec 3405 working wrong with it. Will try to change it to P222.

• Retrieve VMFS partition table... help.

  Hi all

  This morning, when I boot ESXi 4.0.0 I found lost a VMFS volume. By default, my drive has two partitions. I tried to recover the second partition with the instructions on the forum, but it was still not working.

  fdisk- lu/dev/disks/t10. ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1

  Disk/dev/disks/t10. ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1: 500,1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
  255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total of 976773168 areas
  Units is 1 * 512 sectors is 512 bytes

  Device boot start end blocks Id system
  / dev/Disks/T10. 63 8386622 4193280 6 FAT16 ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1p1
  Partition 1 does not stop the limit of cylinder
  / dev/Disks/T10. ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1p2 8386623 976773167 484193272 + fb VMFS

  
  fdisk u /disks/dev/t10. ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1

  The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 60801.
  There is nothing wrong with that, but it is higher than 1024,
  and could in certain setups cause problems with:
  (1) software that runs at startup (for example, the old versions of LILO)
  (2) start and partitioning software to other operating systems
  (e.g. BACK FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

  Command (m for help): d
  Partition number (1-4): 2

  Command (m for help): w
  The partition table has been changed!

  The call ioctl() to re-read the partition table

  u Fdisk/dev/disks/t10. ATA___ST3500418AS___9VM6Z8Y1

  The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1409485.
  There is nothing wrong with that, but it is higher than 1024,
  and could in certain setups cause problems with:
  (1) software that runs at startup (for example, the old versions of LILO)
  (2) start and partitioning software to other operating systems
  (e.g. BACK FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

  Command (m for hELP): n
  Control action
  extended e
  p primary partition (1-4)
  p
  Partition number (1-4): 2
  First of the sector (by default 8386623-976773167, 8386623): using default 8386623
  Last sector or size + or + sizeM or + sizeK (8386623-976773167, by default 976773167): using default value 976773167

  Command (m for help): t
  Partition number (1-4): 2
  HEX code (type L to list codes): fb
  Changed the type of partition 2 to fb (VMFS)

  Command (m for help): x

  Expert command (m for help): b
  Partition number (1-4): 2
  New beginning of data (by default, 8386623-976773167, 8386623): 8386688

  Expert command (m for help): w
  The partition table has been changed!

  Calling ioctl() to re-read the partition table.

  I have VL connection and go to the Configuration > storage > refresh the volume does not return.

  Please help me!.

  This seems really odd. Do you have all the partitions on these 4 discs when you first installed ESXi?

  What version of ESXi you originally installed (3.5 or 4.0) in the case where that this system has been upgraded?

  Please after the release of fdisk-lu for all 4 disks in the system.

  André