svmotion fails with the error: "This operation would violate a virtual machine affinity/anti-affinity rule"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Moving a disk from one datastore to another fails with the ERROR:

This operation would violate a virtual machine affinity/anti-affinity rule

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

The svmotion task conflicts with a rule that dictates where VMs should or should not be located in a cluster.

This is enforced by the Storage DRS.

Resolution

Disable storage DRS and retry the svmotion task again.

Additional Information

Storage DRS FAQ