ESXi 4.1 latest build

[Dr. Pain]

Ive just done a fresh install of this, and was surprised to find that under the disk properties its created flipping loads of partitions.

Like the following:-

Primary Partitions
1. DOS 16bit <32Mb
2. DOS 16bit >32Mb
3. VMFS
4. Extended

Logical Partitions
5. DOS 16bit >32Mb
6. DOS 16bit >32Mb
7. VMWARE Diagnostic
8. DOS 16bit >32Mb

I dont ever remember ESX being that messy, and also can you get any advanced options upon install ?? With ESXi it takes the entire disk and turns it into a single datastore, whereas I want two local datastores taking half the disk each. Is there a secret hidden advanced drive options in the ESXi installation that can be enabled with a key combination.

Anyway aside from that, does everyone else get all those local partitions after a FRESH Esxi 4.1 install ?

Cheers for any help should anyone know!

 

[m4cc45]

I remember there being several partitions that it creats for all variety of reasons and lots of different mount points. I'd have to check on my installs to see exactly what but I know there is a lot (/var /tmp /boot /opt /home of the top of my head) but I wasn't exactly bothered as I don't use the local space for storage.

As for your datastore - why not just delete the datastore and re-create it smaller?



M.

 

[Skidilliplop]

ESXi does make lots of partitions, that's perfectly normal. This is also one of the reasons it doesn't let you partition up manually (unless you get seriously manual and hands on).
It keeps things in separate partitions to make it safer, i.e keeping config files separate to system files and config backups separate again makes it easier to create config snapshots and restore to them if things go **** up. (switches and routers do the same for their config files, primary image, secondary image and bootstrap)
Datastore on the Hypervisor drive is a bad idea anyway, the phrase putting all eggs in one basket comes to mind.

I tend to use 3 drives when not using RAID.
1- Hypervisor
2- VM files and snapshots.
3- VDI files (and usually a datastore for general ISOs + dumpinground)
That way it minimises the effects of a drive failing.
Though these days with ICHxR chipsets being supported by ESXi there's little reason not to go Hypervisor standalone + RAID1 for datastores.

 

[Dr. Pain]

As for your datastore - why not just delete the datastore and re-create it smaller?



M.

Hey buddy, I just did that and it doesnt work... Deleting the local storage and then re-adding it with half its capacity works fine, until I want to add a second datastore, where the local disk doesnt even show up in the initial Disk/LUN screen.

I dont understand what on earth its doing.

Once its deleted, and recreated with half its original size, the rest of the free space does not show up under the partition information screen.