Enable thin provisioning for shared named disks in VMware Cloud Director
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Enable thin provisioning for shared named disks in VMware Cloud Director

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Article ID: 387711

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Updated On: 02-09-2025

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

  • Named disks are created with thick provisioning by default in VCD (VMware Cloud Director) 
  • VCD UI does not provide an option to convert or change them to thin provisioning

Environment

VMware Cloud Director

Cause

 In alignment with vCenter's shared disk requirements, a thick-provisioned disk is necessary for shared named disks.  However, vSAN allows a thin-provisioned shared disk to function similarly.

Resolution

VCD includes a configuration, 'vcloud.disk.shared.eagerZero', which determines the provisioning method for a shared named disk. Setting the value of 'vcloud.disk.shared.eagerZero' to 'true' creates a thick-provisioned disk, while 'false' results in a thin-provisioned disk.

  1. SSH to one of the Cloud Director Cells in the Cloud Director cluster
  2. Run the following cell-management-tool command to enable thin provisioning of shared named disks:  /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n vcloud.disk.shared.eagerZero -v false
  3. To confirm the parameter was successfully added in step 2, please execute the following command to validate: /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n vcloud.disk.shared.eagerZero -l
  4. Restart of the vmware-vcd services on all VCD cells for the changes to take effect: service vmware-vcd stop && service vmware-vcd start

Note: The mentioned configuration is at the system level in VCD, meaning the behavior remains consistent across all tenants and storage policies. It is advised to choose vSAN backed storage policy to create thin provisioned shared named disks.