VMware ESX – How do I grow virtual disks? How to make your DD larger capacity.

Grow virtual disks

It happened to me several times. You install your VM, you make your configuration and than you install some of your software to do some testings and suddenly you get a prompt that you are out of space. What to do? You can add additional drive to have another storage space, but how to make your principal bootable partition larger? Jusf follow this little guide below to find out how.

Before ESX Server 3.5 you had to use the Service Console, and the vmkfstools command to make your vmdk file bigger. But now you have the possibility with the new VI Client, which can be used to grow virtual disks.

Keep in mind that growing a virtual disk only increases the size of the vmdk disk file. It means that for example your VMKD file will grow from 3 to 5 Gigs but, it will not automatically increase the size of your OS disk partitions. This must be done manually afterwards, using a tools you know allready. A variety of methods can be used, including OS tools, partitionning tools like Acronis Disk director Suite , boot CD's (e.g. Knoppix) and other utilities.

How you gonna do that?

Follow these steps to increase the size of an existing virtual disk:

• First, power off the VM
• Choose Edit the Settings for the VM,
• select the virtual disk you want to increase. A new field will be added under Capacity called New Size,
• enter a new value that is larger then the current value and your disk file will instantly be increased to the new size,
• power on the VM and the operating will recognize this new disk space.