Migrating iscsi volumes to datastores - vmware

[Spammeh]

I have a bit of a bizarre question, but hopefully you guys can help. I currently have a vmware exchange 2003 server whcih has 6 disks

2 of which are additional hard drives configured within vsphere and there are 4 attached via MS iSCSI initiator directory to the SAN via iqn.

What I want to do is migrate these 4 initiator drives to be attached just like the other 2, however of those drives, 2 of them contains the MS Exchange mailstores.

Is it as simple as adding these SAN volumes to vsphere as datastores and attaching them to the vm? Or will it wipe those volumes when creating them as a datastore

 

[Spammeh]

The idea behind this is that the existing SAN is being disposed of, we have a replacement in place but unlike the rest of the estate its not a matter of just migrating the disks using storage vmotion within vSphere.

I'm not quite sure why they are attached via iSCSI initiator instead of via vsphere as additional disks (I assume for performance). Its not even set up currently as an RDM, simply bypassing vmware completely and connected directly to the SAN.

I'm not too bothered whether these disks are attached via the 'standard' vsphere method, or via RDM, but if I go via VMFS volumes how am I going to get them from this soon-to-be-decommisioned SAN to my new one with little downtime?

 

[Spammeh]

Had another read around, is this the recommedend process?

1. Remove iSCSI initiator volumes and attach SAN volumes via RDM to virtual machine
2. Run some convertor mechanism within vsphere to convert from an RDM to a VMDK?

 

[Spammeh]

Has anyone had any success with doing this themselves?

 

[Spammeh]

I'm aware that its not an idea situation, this is a server thats been set up a long time, long before I stepped foot inside this place!

Is it as simple as copying the files from one volume to another and then changing the drive letters to match with Exchange 2003 or will it throw a wobbly?