Unable to Increase Size of Virtual Hard Disk (VMDK)

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Unable to increase the size of a virtual hard disk (VMDK) within a VM's edit settings page. The option to edit the size value is grayed out. 

Environment

VMware ESXi 

Cause

The VM is powered on or contains snapshots 

Resolution

In all cases, confirm these before increasing the size of the virtual disk:

• All snapshots must have been removed. For additional information, see:
• The virtual machine must be powered off.
  • PVSCSI controller allows hot extend disk from vSphere 7.0.
  • NVMe controller allows hot extend disk from vSphere 8.0.1.

 

Important Information Before Beginning

Even though this article provides steps to increase the size of a virtual disk (VMDK), the size of the disk partition does not increase as observed inside the guest operating system. Follow steps related to the specific operating system to increase the size of the disk partition(s).

For more information, see Increasing the size of a disk partition.
 

Caution: VMware recommends that valid virtual machine backups are taken before increasing the size of virtual disks.

 

The procedure for increasing the size of a virtual disk differs between VMware products. Follow the section below that matches the product in use.

 

 

Additional Information

Increasing the disk size on a Virtual Machine.