http://www.chriscolotti.us/vmware/info-operations-used-by-the-vcloud-transfer-space/

There really is no detail in the “process” used. It is pretty simple when you think about any export or import process will utilize that space.

You are correct that CLONE operations issued to the same vCenter will not use it but there is plenty that will especially on large scale installs where the import/export API’s are being called.

Bottom line is if you export a VM and there is not enough space either locally on a VMDK of the Cell or on NFS, the export will fail, so expanding that or mounting to NFS large enough is the key. You have to make it large enough to contend with the largest possible export.

Hope that helps clear it up.

I’ll ping some VMware vCloud people to see if they can add anything to this discussion.

The more people know about these commands (single-user mode, rsync) the better.

Thank you Jason & Bob.

You’re correct in that you could add a volume, align it properly, and mount it without using LVM, which would make the steps slightly shorter. But your comment basically outlines all the other steps listed above, except in extreme brevity, and without the absolutely essential step of aligning the partitions.

Someone coming from a Linux or UNIX background would have no problem doing what you just described. Someone coming from a Windows background would be absolutely lost. Even a simple task, like “copy the Cell files over,” is daunting. How in the heck do you do that? And even if they figured out cp, would they get any dot files, or hose the permissions in the process? This process is very future-proof, too, in that the methods used are generic enough to survive changes to the product.

Our goal was to outline exactly what someone needs to do if they want to do this and do it right, and give them commands that help ensure that they’ll be successful. The reader might also learn a few things in the process, like how to enter single-user mode, use rsync, and/or deal with the crazy LVM thing Red Hat installed for them. That’s the sort of knowledge that’s handy later when they have to maintain the vCD host, or fix a problem.

It seems overly complicated to resize the partition to add extra space to the Transfer. You could go the NFS way for sure, but you could also just add a new vDISK to your vCD appliance, mount it next to the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer directory, stop vCD, copy the Cell files over, and then re-map it as /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer and restart vCD.
All the lvcreate,rsync,single-user mode commands are nicely documented, but it seems you over-complicate things.