Unable to change the virtual machine Storage Policy on Powered On VMs using IDE virtual storage adapters

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

• This is to help Administrator/user/customer to troubleshoot issues related to storage policy change for VMs using IDE controllers for virtual disks.

Symptoms:

• Storage Policy changes on Virtual Machines using IDE storage controllers within vSAN datastore will throw an error while applying or modifying storage policy when the VMs are powered on . However you may see that back-end object placement do change as per the desired storage policy and the name of the storage policy does not reflect the changes, the VM  will continue to have its older storage policy name in display . 

Error message : The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state ("Powered on").

 

• On ESXi host in /var/log/hostd.log :

2019-04-03T08:35:54.539Z verbose hostd[53A81B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=788f1553 user=root] RecordOp ASSIGN: info, haTask--vim.AuthorizationManager.retrieveAllPermissions-133605216. Applied change to temp map.
2019-04-03T08:35:54.545Z vsanSoapServer: VSAN_SPBMToVsanExpressionString:641:Emitted Vsan Expr: (("spbmProfileId" '########-####-####-####-########5bad' )("spbmProfileGenerationNumber" l+0 )("spbmProfileName" 'vSAN Default StoragePolicy')("proportionalCapacity" i0 ) ("cacheReservation" i0 ) ("forceProvisioning" i0 ) ("stripeWidth" i1 ) ("hostFailuresToTolerate" i1 ) )
2019-04-03T08:35:54.545Z info hostd[53F44B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=ManageVmStorageProfilesFormMediator-apply-15425-ngc:70001255-b6-24-1552 user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\Administrator] VSAN_ForceNamespacePolicyAttributes: overriding specifiedproportional capacity maximum to 100%

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2019-04-03T08:35:54.666Z error hostd[53F44B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:524af082########-######4c07085fb1/########-####-####-####-########d354/Arvind.vmx opID=ManageVmStorageProfilesFormMediator-apply-15425-ngc:70001255-b6-24-1552 user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\Administrator] Cannot hot config IDE disks.
2019-04-03T08:35:54.666Z verbose hostd[532C2B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=ManageVmStorageProfilesFormMediator-apply-15425-ngc:70001255-b6-24-1552 user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\Administrator] RecordOp ASSIGN: vm["61] ha-root-pool. Sent notification immediately.
2019-04-03T08:35:54.666Z info hostd[53F44B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:524af082########-######4c07085fb1/########-####-####-####-########d354/Arvind.vmx opID=ManageVmStorageProfilesFormMediator-apply-15425-ngc:70001255-b6-24-1552 user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\Administrator] Reconfigure failed: vim.fault.InvalidPowerState

Environment

VMware vSAN 6.x
VMware vSAN 6.7.x
VMware vSAN 6.2.x
VMware vSAN 6.6.x

Cause

Hostd service does not allow storage policy changes to be applied on IDE controller disks with Error : Cannot hot config IDE disks.

Resolution

Upgrade vCenter/ESXi to version 7.0U3i

Workaround:
Note: Both of the below options will require down time for the VM.

Option 1:
Shutdown the VM, change the storage policy and power on the VM again.

Option 2:
Change the controller for the VM from IDE to virtual SCSI controller via the below steps, however there is a chance that the VM might not boot if it uses a legacy operating system.

1) Take a backup of the VM
2) Clone the VM and apply the changes during the clone process(changing the controller from IDE to BusLogic Parallel, LSI Logic Parallel, LSI Logic SAS, and VMware Paravirtual SCSI)

Cloning and converting virtual machine disks with vmkfstools (1028042)

If the cloned VM boots fine, continue to use the cloned VM after validating all the data at the guest level and delete the source VM .

If the virtual SCSI controller does not allow the VM to boot or does not show, defer to Option 1

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Low