Completely replacing (upgrading) a RAID 5 array of disks on an ESXi server

Posted by jshin47 on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by jshin47
Published on 2012-11-08T21:50:08Z Indexed on 2012/11/08 23:03 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 259

Filed under:

vmware-esxi

|

hard-drive

|

raid5

I have a development server that runs several VM on ESXi 5. It has an array of disks in the RAID 5 configuration where all of the disks are currently the same size. I would like to expand storage on this box greatly, but I am not sure what the smartest way to go about this would be. My current plan is to:

Turn off all VM
Copy VM folders from server to another location
Verify that I can mount all the VM on the new location (ie that the copy went ok)
Replace all the disks with new, bigger ones
Reinstall ESXi5
Copy the VM back over

This seems like it might take a while to accomplish and is not terribly slick, especially since I will have to reconfigure ESXi 5, but is there a smarter alternative?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about vmware-esxi

VMWare ESXi, change the default path for a VM

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
For some reason VMWare ESXi has decided that one of my VMs is on a completely different path to the path it is actually on. So my VM is on /vmfs/volumes/long-guid-here/my-vm-name but when I try to open it I get the message "File < unspecified filename was not found." Which is not really surprising… >>> More
VMWare ESXi 3.5 Wake On Lan

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hello everyone! I am using VMWare ESXi 3.5 on my server, and I want to be able to remotely boot the server up. In the bios settings of the computer, I enabled Wake on Lan. I know usually with Windows XP and other Windows Operating Systems, you have to also enable wake on lan in the network card settings… >>> More
blu-ray archiving in vmware ESXi 4

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, I need some advice about using blu-ray writer for archiving data on vmware ESXi 4. At office we have IBM System x3400 Tower server with ESXi 4 hipervisor and OpenSuse and CentOS GNU/Linux system as guests. Will blu-ray writer work in this setup, and if it will is there any particular model you… >>> More
I need to get VMWare Server running inside of a VMWare ESXi virtual machine

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Yes, I know running a virtual machine inside of a virtual machine is a bad idea. Yes, I know it will be very slow. However, our production system required VMs in VMWare server and I do not want to setup a real server for each of our developers for testing. I would like to be able to setup all of… >>> More
Eject disk on Mac Pro running VMWare ESXi

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but I'm stuck. I installed VMWare ESXi on a Mac Pro. It's working great! The problem is that you press F12 to eject the disk, and F12 is what you use to shutdown ESX. I can power down, open the case, pull out the CD drive and use a paper clip to force the drawer… >>> More

Related posts about hard-drive

Move smaller hard drive to partition on a larger hard drive

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about… >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More
Using an ATA-100 Hard Drive with a Thermaltake BlacX External Hard Drive Dock

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is it possible for a Thermaltake BlacX HDD Dock to connect to and recognize an ATA-100 Hard Drive? I know that the specifications for the BlacX say that it only supports SATA & SATAII, but I was hoping for one of three things: 1) for it to still work even though it isn't supported 2) for there… >>> More
backup hard drive image on external hard drive for Windows 7

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hello, I am looking for a backup tool for Windows 7, that will allow me to backup my laptop’s hard drive on an external hard drive as an exact image. In a case of a problem with the main hard drive, I would like just to swap the drives and to continue to work using the backup hard drive. Thanks >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More