SDRS generates recommendations to migrate the VM disk to a different datastore after adding a new disk to the VM

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• After editing the VM to add disks, powering it on displays the following message in the UI:
  vCenter Server recommends the following datastores for the virtual machines. Recommendations for virtual machines within the same datastore cluster are linked together and must either be accepted or rejected as a group. Click Apply if these recommendations are acceptable. 
  
  
  
  
  
• SDRS is set to "No automation (Manual Mode)".
  
  
• Selecting the "Cancel" will not add add the disk to the VM. 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x or later
VMware vCenter Server 8.x or later

Cause

The above recommendation is generated by SDRS in vSphere 8.x when SDRS is enabled on the cluster.

Resolution

Clicking "Apply" will move the VM disks to the suggested/recommended datastore(s). However, there may be situations where you might not want to relocate the VM to the recommended datastore.

Below are possible workarounds to successfully add a disk to the VM while bypassing the above recommendations:
Option 1: Disable SDRS while editing the VM.
Option 2: Create a VM-to-datastore affinity rule to ensure the VM remains on a single datastore.