How to use space on two different datastores with one VM

[asklepiades]

Concerning: ESXi 6.0 on a Fujitsu I7 Workstation using the Web-GUI from Win10

I have three physical discs attached with datastore 1 on the first and second disc

datastore 2 on the second disc and datastore 3 on the third physical disc.

It seems impossible to supply a VM on datastore 2 (Linux Debian) with an additional virtual disc on datastore 3

the system always demands to create additional space within datastore 2 instead.

Of course, it would be possible to expand datastore 2 to the third physical disc but it seems to be a bad idea to use

datastores on devices with different speeds. In this case I want to store on slow discs and work on fast discs and not

mix them up.

Can you tell me how to use space in different datastores with one VM?

possibly, the datastore needs to be prepared with a config file for the additional virtual disc, not only

prepared as datastore. Maybe I missed a fundamental detail of administration here.

Thank you for your ideas howtos and tips !

[rcporto]

A single virtual disk (vmdk) cannot use space from multiple datastores... BUT, if you want expand a Linux partition to use space from different datastores, just create a new virtual disk (vmdk) on the new datastore, map to the virtual machine, and inside the virtual machine if you're using LVM, add the new virtual disk to the LVM that you want increase the size... this way a single LVM (and logical volume) can have space from multiple datastores at the same time.

[rcporto]

Hi asklepiades‌

Did you have a chance to read my previous post? Do you have any additional doubt? If not, remember to mark answers as helpful or correct.

[continuum]

Do you use single physical disks like SATA disks like this ?
Datastore1 : one extend stored on SATA-disk-1 + a second extend stored on SATA-2
Datastore2: one extend on SATA-2
Datastore3: one extend on SATA-3
somehow like that ? - if not - please explain.
If thats what you use, I highly recommend to try to rebuild Datastores 1 and 2 as soon as possible.
Avoid extends ! - especially on single hosts setup.
If the VMFS-volume of Datastore 1 or 2 gets damaged by a power-faiure or whatever you very likely end with 2 damaged Datastores - not just one !

Anyway you could create a new vmdk on Datastore 2 via vmkfstools -c.
Once created you can add the vmdk to any existing VM by adding an "existing disk" via the GUI