Moving VM from on ESXi host to another

[slylittlefox]

What's the best way to do this?

Trying to move our VMs from one host to another, but they've all got thin provisioned disks and would easily fill any client PC if downloaded and then reuploaded.

Anyone any ideas? Ideally I'd like to move them directly to save any download/upload process.

 

[slylittlefox]

Alternatively, is there any way to change the UUID of the filesystem on one disk, so I can just move the disk into the new host?

At the moment it complains that it's found two filesystems with the same UUID and fails to boot.

 

[slylittlefox]

Cheers for the replies guys. I'll give VEEAM FastSCP a go and failing that try VMware converter.

There's two ESXi boxes at a remote location, I've got access to an XP client on the same network.

@Dr Pain, Droyden: ESXi Filestore? You mean the datastore browser? This is all just ESXi, I don't have licenses for vSphere centre, only the basic client.

 

[slylittlefox]

Easiest way is to browse the local datastore, and download the VM directory and its files to your local PC. THen Upload the the OTHER ESXi Datastore, and job done after a quick import.

Can't do that though because the thin provisioned disks expand and so are too big for the client

You can do it in one step, using VMware converter!

Takes 5 mins to set up then leave it to move the VM, then boot the VM.

Job done.

VEEAM is running at the moment copying across the first VM (only at 5MB/s though ) - think I'll try Converter for the next one

Cheers for all the advice.

 

[slylittlefox]

Haha

When you download a thin disk to a normal filesystem, it expands - so the Teradata VM I was wanting to move was expanding to 180GB on the client (form which I'd then upload to the new host) and failing as a result.

Anyway, I tried VEEAM, but that had the same effect even copying from ESXi -> ESXi, VMWare converter did the job perfectly and in just a few minutes

Cheers Harry!

 

[slylittlefox]

Yeah just the free licenses; they're dev systems