VMware ESXi question

[Jeff7181]

What's the best way to migrate a VM from one datastore to another on the same host? Basically I installed another hard drive and I'd like to move one of my VM's to the new drive. A while back I had tried just moving the files like I would do with Virtual PC VM's, but that didn't go very well. I don't have access to any of the "for pay" tools to migrate it for me, so I'm basically looking for a manual way to do it via vSphere Client.

 

[sourceninja]

Just shut down the vm. Remove the vm from vcenter and then move it. Then add it back to vcenter.

Or use vmotion

 

[Agamar]

Wish we could all afford vmotion!

 

[sourceninja]

Last time we switched SAN's it was faster to just shutdown the VM's and do a manual copy from one volume to another then re-add them to vcenter.

But vmotion is amazing and I don't think I could work without it.

 

[imagoon]

Pretty sure you just shut it down, then right click on the VM, hit "migrate", "change datastore" via the vSphere client (the one you download from the esxi server itself.)

 

[Jeff7181]

I didn't see a Migrate option, but I'll look again. I thought that was a pay-for-feature of vMotion or Virtual Center.

I suppose I could try using the 60-day evaluation of vMotion to do it... but there's got to be a "free" way to do it.

Could having snapshots that were not committed or discarded be the cause of the problems I had just manually moving the files via vSphere Client?

 

[imagoon]

I didn't see a Migrate option, but I'll look again. I thought that was a pay-for-feature of vMotion or Virtual Center.

I suppose I could try using the 60-day evaluation of vMotion to do it... but there's got to be a "free" way to do it.

Could having snapshots that were not committed or discarded be the cause of the problems I had just manually moving the files via vSphere Client?

You are correct, I just disconnected a test env machine from my test vcenter server and the migrate option went away.

I haven't tried it in a long time but I recall the stand alone VMware P2V tool being able to do this. It is free. I think you pick the source and destination server as the same but select the other datastore. It will be slower though. Your other option is to read the CLI here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

and do it from maintenance mode on the host, or using the RCLI interface (remote command line interface) (I think basic includes that.)

-edit-

Your answer:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1000936

PS might be worth spending the $800 to buy the essentials edition of VMware. vCenter and 3 hosts / 2 socket licenses for that price.

 

[sourceninja]

You shouldn't do a move with snapshots. Just delete all snapshots, remove from vcenter, copy files to new datastore and re-add.

The migrate functions are all vmotion.

If you are not going to pay for vcenter essentials, you should switch to xen server which has migration tools for free.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I had to ship an image for a DR site across the state last month. I used the VM export option to create an OVF file which took a 20GB thin-provisioned VM down to 900MB....it fit on a DVD nicely. You can always use OVF files if a cold migration won't work for you.

Cold migration just means you shut down the Virtual Machine and then use "migrate" from the menu to change datastore or host. I think you can do that for free even if you don't have vSphere and are using the VI client straight to an ESX host.

 

[imagoon]

You shouldn't do a move with snapshots. Just delete all snapshots, remove from vcenter, copy files to new datastore and re-add.

The migrate functions are all vmotion.

If you are not going to pay for vcenter essentials, you should switch to xen server which has migration tools for free.

Not 100% true. Migrate works fine without vmotion on vcenter. He doesn't have vcenter at all. You can use the P2V utility to do the migration it is just slower. Otherwise you have to use the command line. IE "cp blah.vmdk src dest" then use the cli to do the vmx move. This works with snapshots fine.

The migrate command is missing when I connect directly to a host. Not sure if that is by design or not.

 

[imagoon]

And I found it...

Shutdown and Unregister the VM.
"Browse datastore"
Click on the folder for that VM
Click "move"
Read the warning.
Pick the "move to" location
Click go. Get coffee.
Go to the new location, click on the .vmx and click register.

 

[sourceninja]

Not 100% true. Migrate works fine without vmotion on vcenter. He doesn't have vcenter at all. You can use the P2V utility to do the migration it is just slower. Otherwise you have to use the command line. IE "cp blah.vmdk src dest" then use the cli to do the vmx move. This works with snapshots fine.

The migrate command is missing when I connect directly to a host. Not sure if that is by design or not.

Yea, your correct. It's been a long time for me using the free stuff.

 

[classy]

The best way to do this is to use Veeam SCP
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html.
Connect to the host, it will show you the data stores and copy over the whole folder. Then just add the VM through the vmx file. This is the cleanest way without vcenter. You can also schedule the copy so it can run at night. Shutdown the VM though.

 

[wheresmybacon]

The best way to do this is to use Veeam SCP
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html.
Connect to the host, it will show you the data stores and copy over the whole folder. Then just add the VM through the vmx file. This is the cleanest way without vcenter. You can also schedule the copy so it can run at night. Shutdown the VM though.

What a cool utility! Been screwing around with this since yesterday and I'm impressed.