VMware Storage vMotion fails on virtual disks configured as independent non-persistent disk mode.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

VMware Storage VMotion fails to migrate virtual machine disks that are configured as independent non-persistent disks 

Environment

• VMware vCenter server 7.x
• VMware vCenter server 8.x
• VMware ESX Server 7.x
• VMware ESX Server 8.x

Cause

A virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the virtual machine disks to be migrated with Storage vMotion.

Storage vMotion is subject to the following requirements and limitations: 

• Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be raw device mappings (RDMs).
• Migration of virtual machines during VMware Tools installation is not supported. 
• The host on which the virtual machine is running must have a license that includes Storage vMotion. 
• Cannot move virtual disks greater than 2 TB from a VMFS5 datastore to a VMFS3 datastore. 
• The host on which the virtual machine is running must have access to both the source and target datastores.
• ESXi 4.0 and later hosts do not require vMotion configuration to perform migration with Storage vMotion

Resolution

This is a known issue. As a work around, temporarily change the disk type to persistent and migrate the virtual machine disks.

1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Click Edit Virtual Machine Settings.
3. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Hard disk, and select an independent persistent disk mode option. [In customer environment it will be independent non-persistent mode]
4. Click OK.
   
5. Retry performing storage vMotion.