How long will the conversion take place ?

[michel_hesse]

Hello there,

I have a approx 300GB Hard Disk physical Server (Dual Core 3GHz 2048MB RAM 1GB/s Network connection), and I'd like to convert this one into a virtual machine.

The ESX Server I'd like to convert it to is a Dual Core 2,2GHz 4GB RAM and also 1GB/s Network connection

Is there a chance to predict how long it will take to convert the physical machine into a virtual machine ?

I'd like to do it over night, but if it takes more than 8 hours I have to do it on a weekend.

Thank you for all replies.

Michél

[radu_dinut]

There's really not easy to predict. From my experience, the more small files are on the server, the longer will take to convert it. Especially if you resize the partitions. You could just try one evening and if you see good progress then let it finish. If not, cancel it and leave it for the week-end.

[continuum]

Be careful with that 300 Gb disk - ESX with vmfs in 1 mb blocks only allows 256 Gb disks.

So you will eventually need to resize the disk.

In this case you may not be able to run the importduring a nightshift

[michel_hesse]

thank you for this,

I already resized the Blocksize to 4M, this will do it it.

I think I will try to start it this evening and if the conversion is still at 30% tomorrow at 06:00 o'clock in the morning a colleague from the morning shift can stop the conversion process.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Michél