Cannot grow VMFS datastore, the Increase button is disabled

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Attempting to increase the size of a VMFS Datastore fails
• The Increase button is disabled in the vSphere Client

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

The Increase button will be disabled under two conditions:

• In a mixed environment comprised of both ESX 3.x and 4.x and ESXi 5.x hosts.
• When the Datastore is on a Snapshot LUN that has been force-mounted.

Mixed Environment

Increasing the size of an existing datastore is a new feature introduced in vSphere 4.x, and is not available with previous versions. The Increase functionality may not be available in a mixed environment of ESX/ESXi 3.x and 4.x/ESXi 5.x hosts managed by the same vCenter Server.

To workaround this limitation, connect the vSphere Client to an ESX/ESXi 4.x/ESXi 5.x host directly, and use the Increase button there to grow the datastore.

Force mounted

When a LUN contains a VMFS datastore copy (snapshot), you can mount the datastore with the existing signature or assign a new signature. For more information, see the Managing Duplicate VMFS Datastores section of the vSphere ESX Configuration Guide.

Adding an extent to or growing an extent in a force mounted VMFS datastore volume is not supported. The Increase button is disabled under this condition.

To increase the size of a VMFS Datastore copy, use datastore resignaturing to assign a new UUID and label to the datastore. For more information, see the Resignaturing VMFS Copies section of the vSphere ESX Configuration Guide.

Note: If the resignatured datastore contains virtual machines, you must update references to the original VMFS datastore in the virtual machine files. The virtual machines must be re-registered with vCenter Server. For more information, see Unable to power on a virtual machine after a volume resignature (1007022).

Additional Information

For more information, see the Understanding VMFS Datastores section of the vSphere SAN Configuration Guide.
Unable to power on a virtual machine after a volume resignature
VMFS データストアを拡張できず、[増加] ボタンが無効化される