Comments on: ESX partitioning a lost art form in ESXi

By: Which is the recommended filesystem for VMware Server / ESXi? - Admins Goodies

Which is the recommended filesystem for VMware Server / ESXi? - Admins Goodies — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:47:55 +0000

[...] However, if you’re looking just the best guideline for paritions when installing ESXi; Jason Boche has a great article here: http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2008/10/24/esx-partitioning-a-lost-art-form-in-esxi/ [...]

By: Mike Moniz

Mike Moniz — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:41:43 +0000

One issue I’ve noticed with the automatic partitions with ESXi is that it uses 1MB blocks which ends up limiting VM disk sizes to ~250GB unless you go in there and redo the vmfs partition.

By: df -m? - TechExams.net IT Certification Forums

df -m? - TechExams.net IT Certification Forums — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:28:57 +0000

[...] #3 (permalink) For ESXi just let the hypervisor partition it how it wants (ESX partitioning a lost art form in ESXi boche.net – VMware Virtualization Evangelist). If you're dealing with an older ESX environment, then have a look at Duncan's blog post on the [...]

By: www.vExperienced.co.uk » VCAP-DCA Study notes – 9.1 Installing ESX with custom settings

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:55:12 +0000

[...] layout – ESXi uses an automatic partitioning scheme which the user can’t change. See this blogpost at Jason Boche’s site, and another blog article at Geeksilver’s site (and one more for [...]

By: Sharp Admin

Sharp Admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:45:54 +0000

You said time will tell if existing ESXi disk partitioning is fine. Unfortunately, no. See the problem about ESXi Vsphere 4 and 4U1 disconnecting/connecting problem with VC. That’s sure problem with small / partition overfilling.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:06:42 +0000

Any changes in all this with ESXi 4??

By: Vishwas

Vishwas — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:07:54 +0000

Have you ever had issues with the Vmfs creation on the UI? The UI calls into the API and follows the Vmfs best practices, by default.

By: Stu

Stu — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:16:34 +0000

I’m with Stevie on this one… saying that an art has been lost because there are no partitioning options in ESXi is like saying the art of tweaking Windows or Linux for specific hardware is lost when you stick a hypervisor underneath it. Some arts are definitely better lost.

The reason partitioning layouts were important with the COS was because ppl wanted to treat the COS like a general purpose Linux OS (like the commenter Ahsan). Sticking agents in there, creating multiple local user accounts, installing RPM’s for this that and the other etc etc. This world is gone with ESXi, for bloody good reason – ESX is not a general purpose OS and should not be treated as such!

With ESXi, VMware has much more control over what ppl can do to it and hence can give us a partition configuration out of the box that has been designed by the people who wrote ESXi. It’s optimal, fit for purpose, and has one purpose only. Which is how it should be.

In my experience, a lot of ESX admins learned the “what” of optimal ESX partitioning without really understanding the “why”. Having a reasonable understanding of the “why”, I am not concerned at the lack of partitioning options in ESXi one bit.

By: jason

jason — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:44:20 +0000

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) is an option. It’s part of the VMware Foundation Licensing. vRangerPRO from Vizioncore will also soon be an option (hopefully in the next release).

As far as other options, a recent VMTN forum post was made here: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/164134 Take a look at it and see if you can’t find a solution that might fit for you.

Jas

By: Ahsan

Ahsan — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:41:00 +0000

I have been working on ESXi – Actually the free hypervisor has been an incentive to perform much need server consolidation. I am really impressed with the small footprint. I have been playing with the ESXi console – yes it does have one, a very basic one and it does support whole bunch of services – all of which are disabled by default. I have enabled ssh for the moment. What I was looking for was a way to install redhat package manager on the console but realized there was not enough space. Hence been looking for ways to repartition – any suggestion. Also are there any recommendations for scheduling backups of VMs on ESXi.

By: jason

jason — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:20:36 +0000

Glad you were able to find the blog again reece!

Jas

By: reece

reece — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:02:08 +0000

Hi, I read this post titled “titioning a lost art form in ESXi – boche.net – VMware Virtualization Evangelist” about a week ago, might have been last Saturday, and thought it was a good point. I’ve been trying for the last few days to find your site again but ended up finding it in Google using the keywords “mcse training”. Anyway, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to post last week but I will be returning regularly. Bookmarked the page.

By: jason

jason — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:59:22 +0000

Mark, ESXi can try all it likes to provide me with auto created VMFS volumes, but as you mentioned, we don’t want to create too many VMs or too much activity on one LUN, therefore, I prefer LUNs in the 500-800GB size. We can easily destroy VMFS volumes (with no VMs on them) and re-recreate VMFS volumes that are the appropriate size. As far as SAN is concerned, I don’t install ESX/ESXi with SAN LUNs presented. In the past, ESX could nuke the contents of pre-existing VMFS volumes that it found. I believe that has been remedied in current ESX builds but I want to test some more before I throw caution to the wind.

Jas

By: Mark Foster

Mark Foster — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:37:38 +0000

Interesting examination. I think the real test will be what happens with larger (>1TB) disks. At Vmworld a couple years ago it was shown that the sweet spot for sizing VMFS paritions was somewhere around 512GB, obviously this will vary depending on how many VMs you’re running and their VMDK sizes… but my point is if you overtax the VMFS parition by putting too many VMs on it that could be bad and it the autopartitioning leaves you with one humongous VMFS parition, well…

By: jason

jason — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:44:59 +0000

Steve, I agree with your comments. If auto partitioning works for everyone and is reliable, I’m totally for it. It’s simply a change in the way we (I) are used to doing things and we (I) can adapt. Right now I have more anxiety in losing the COS in general. Much of what I know about methods in managing and tuning ESX retires with the COS. I need to learn and understand the new ways we manage ESXi in a sort of console-less world. In addition, 3rd party products on the market which I use aren’t supporting ESXi yet. Don’t get me wrong – from a high level, I think it’s the right direction and we (I) will get there.