vSphere Storage - ESXi 5.1 - Documentation - VMware

Option Description
Use free space Deploys an extent in the remaining free space of the disk. This option is
available only when you are adding an extent.
Use all available partitions Dedicates the entire disk to a single extent. This option is available only when
you are adding an extent and when the disk you are formatting is not blank.
The disk is reformatted, and the datastores and any data that it contains are
erased.
8 Set the capacity for the extent.
The minimum extent size is 1.3GB. By default, the entire free space on the storage device is available.
9 Click Next.
10 Review the proposed layout and the new configuration of your datastore, and click Finish.
What to do next
After you grow an extent in a shared VMFS datastore, refresh the datastore on each host that can access this
datastore, so that the vSphere Client can display the correct datastore capacity for all hosts.
Increase VMFS Datastore Capacity in the vSphere Web Client
When you need to add virtual machines to a datastore, or when the virtual machines running on a datastore
require more space, you can dynamically increase the capacity of a VMFS datastore.
If a shared datastore has powered on virtual machines and becomes 100% full, you can increase the datastore's
capacity only from the host with which the powered on virtual machines are registered.
Prerequisites
Browse to Datastores in the vSphere Web Client navigator. See “Display Datastore Information in the vSphere
Web Client,” on page 23.
Procedure
1 Select the datastore to grow and click the Increase Datastore Capacity icon.
2 Select a device from the list of storage devices.
Your selection depends on whether an expandable storage device is available.
Option Description
To expand an existing extent Select the device for which the Expandable column reads YES. A storage
device is reported as expandable when it has free space immediately after
the extent.
To add a new extent Select the device for which the Expandable column reads NO.
3 Review the Current Disk Layout to see the available configurations and click Next.
4 Select a configuration option from the bottom panel.
Depending on the current layout of the disk and on your previous selections, the options you see might
vary.
Option Description
Use free space to add new extent Adds the free space on this disk as a new extent.
Use free space to expand existing
extent
Expands an existing extent to a required capacity.
Chapter 17 Working with Datastores
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