6.0

Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 29
Chapter 3 Managing Files
--migratevirtualdisk -M
--parseimage -Y
--punchzero -K
--snapshotdisk -I
--verbose -v
Upgrading VMFS3 Volumes to VMFS5
vSphere5.0supportsVMFS5volumes,whichhaveimprovedscalabilityandperformance.Youcanupgrade
fromVMFS3toVMFS5byusingthevSphereWebClient,thevmkfstoolsESXiShellcommand,ortheesxcli
storage vmfs upgradecommand.PassthevolumelabelorthevolumeUUIDtotheESXCLIcommand.
Managing VMFS Volumes
Differentcommandsareavailableforlisting,mounting,andunmountingVMFSvolumesandforlisting,
mounting,andunmountingVMFSsnapshotvolumes.
ManagingVMFSvolumes
esxcli storage filesystem listshowsallvolumes,mountedandunmounted,thatareresolved,
thatis,thatarenotsnapshotvolumes.
esxcli storage filesystem unmountunmountsacurrentlymountedfilesystem.Usethiscommand
forsnapshotvolumesorresolvedvolumes.
Managingsnapshotvolumes
esxcli storage vmfs snapshotcommandscanbeusedforlisting,mounting,andresignaturing
snapshotvolumes.See“MountingDatastoreswithExistingSignatures”onpage 29and“Resignaturing
VMFSCopies”onpage 30.
Managing Duplicate VMFS Datastores
EachVMFSdatastorecreatedinaLUNhasauniqueUUIDthatisstoredinthefilesystemsuperblock.When
theLUNisreplicatedorwhenasnapshotismade,theresultingLUNcopyisidentical,byteforbyte,tothe
originalLUN.Asaresult,iftheoriginalLUNcontains
aVMFSdatastorewithUUIDX,theLUNcopyappears
tocontainanidenticalVMFSdatastore,oraVMFSdatastorecopy,withthesameUUIDX.
ESXihostscandeterminewhetheraLUNcontainstheVMFSdatastorecopy,andeithermountthedatastore
copywithitsoriginalUUIDorchangethe
UUIDtoresignaturethedatastore.
WhenaLUNcontainsaVMFSdatastorecopy,youcanmountthedatastorewiththeexistingsignatureor
assignanewsignature.ThevSphereStoragedocumentationdiscussesvolumeresignaturingindetail.
Mounting Datastores with Existing Signatures
YoucanmountaVMFSdatastorecopywithoutchangingitssignatureiftheoriginalisnotmounted.For
example,youcanmaintainsynchronizedcopiesofvirtualmachinesatasecondarysiteaspartofadisaster
recoveryplan.Intheev entofadisasterattheprimarysite,youcanmount
thedatastorecopyandpoweron
thevirtualmachinesatthesecondarysite.
WhenyoumounttheVMFSdatastore,ESXiallowsbothreadandwriteoperationstothedatastorethatresides
ontheLUNcopy.TheLUNcopymustbewritable.Thedatastoremountsarepersistentandvalidacross
systemreboots.
I
MPORTANTYoucannotupgradeVMFS3volumestoVMFS5withthevmkfstoolscommandincludedin
vSphereCLI.
IMPORTANTYoucanmountaVMFSdatastoreonlyifitdoesnotconflictwithanalreadymountedVMFS
datastorethathasthesameUUID.