{"id":257,"date":"2020-02-15T15:29:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T15:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robinplomp.com\/?p=257"},"modified":"2020-02-15T19:53:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T19:53:09","slug":"vmware-esxi-clone-thick-disk-to-thin-disk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"VMware ESXi : Thick disk to Thin disk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a>At the end of last year I have reinstalled my home lab environment from Microsoft Hyper-V to VMware ESXi. I converted my VM\u2019s to the ESXi format with the VMware Offline converter. This process was going smoothly. To be honest way smoother that expected. I worked a lot with VMware in the past but since I started working at PQR I worked with VMware more and more. I really like the management features in VMware vCenter.
\n
\nRecently I noticed that the free diskspace on my datastore was reduced to 20 GB. Since my VMware environment consists of just one host with one datastore I can\u2019t convert my VM\u2019s by vMotioning them to the other datastore. While doing some research online I found a method to convert the VM from Thick to Thin disk mode.<\/p>\n

To enable SSH from the <\/a>vSphere Web Client (this is the webclient on the ESXi host) do the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Select the host and click Manage, and select Settings.<\/li>\n
  2. Click Security Profile<\/li>\n
  3. In the Services section, click Edit<\/li>\n
  4. Sellect SSH, and start the service<\/li>\n
  5. Click OK.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

    Connect with Putty or a any other SSH client (I used the Terminal app on my MacBook) to connect to the ESXi host and logon with your root<\/strong> credentials.
    \nFirst and foremost, make sure that the VM your are going the clone is powered down.
    \nNavigate to the folder that holds the target VM.
    \ncd \/vmfs\/volumes\/datastore1\/Core01
    \n<\/strong>Clone the vmdk to a thin provisioned disk using vmkfstools
    \nvmkftools \u2013i Core01.vmdk \u2013d thin-Core01.vmdk
    \n<\/strong>Rename the old flat file mv Core01-flat.vmdk Core01-flat.vmdk
    \n<\/strong>Rename the new flat file mv thin-Core01-flat.vmdk Core01-flat.vmdk
    \n<\/strong>Unregister VM from ESXi inventory, this is necessary for the host to recognize the new disk type. (Right-Click Core01>Unregister
    \n<\/strong>Re-register the VM (Create \/ Register VM> Register an existing virtual machine,  browse to the folder that holds the machine that you want to register and select the vmx file.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Boot the VM, and make sure it boots succesfull and all is well.
    \nRemove unnecessary vmdk files rm thin-Core01.vmdk && rm Core01-flat.vmdk.old<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"image\"<\/a> After cloning all my VM\u2019s from Thick disk to Thin disk I have 341,93 GB free disk space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    At the end of last year I have reinstalled my home lab environment from Microsoft Hyper-V to VMware ESXi. I converted my VM\u2019s to the ESXi format with the VMware Offline converter. This process was going smoothly. To be honest way smoother that expected. I worked a lot with VMware in the past but since … Lees verder VMware ESXi : Thick disk to Thin disk<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esxi","category-vcenter","category-vmware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinplomp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}