vSAN License cannot be applied due to capacity exceeding entitlement

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

• Attempting to apply or assign a new vSAN license key fails with the error "The license capacity is insufficient."
  

• The vSAN cluster reports a raw capacity (e.g., 146.71 TB) that is higher than the license key capacity (e.g., 140 TB).

 

Environment

vSAN 8.0 U3 OSA

Cause

The issue is caused by a mismatch between the physical raw capacity claimed by the vSAN cluster and the capacity entitlement of the provided license key.
This occurs when the license key is undersized for the total physical storage installed in the hosts.

Resolution

Before proceeding with the technical resolution, ensure that the reported capacity is not inflated by stale metadata or reporting bugs:

1. Rule out "Ghost" Disks: Verify that no stale disk entries exist in the host configuration by running: configstorecli config current get -c vsan -g system -k host_config Refer to KB 381817 if stale UUIDs are found.

2. Rule out 4Kn Reporting Issues: If using 4Kn drives, ensure you are not hitting the reporting bug described in KB 392165.

If the capacity is confirmed to be accurate, choose one of the following two solutions:

Solution 1: Request a License Expansion (Recommended)

Contact your Broadcom Sales representative or Account Manager to obtain a license key that covers the full raw capacity of the cluster. This allows you to maintain your current storage footprint.

Solution 2: Reduce Physical Cluster Capacity

To apply the existing license, you must reduce the cluster's raw capacity to fall within the license entitlement.

1. 1. Identify one capacity disk in each host to be removed.

   2. Perform a Data Migration Pre-check on the device to ensure the cluster has sufficient space to remain compliant with storage policies.

   3. Follow the official steps to Remove Disk Groups or Devices from vSAN.

   4. Select Full Data Migration as the evacuation mode.

   5. Remove the disk from the host.

   6. Repeat this process one disk at a time, allowing all resync activity to complete before moving to the next host.

   7. Once the total reported capacity is below the license limit, apply the new license key in vCenter.

Additional Information

Note that the vCenter UI does calculate the displayed capacity in TiB, however displays TB incorrectly (eg, 140 TiB is licensed and 147 TiB in use, but vCenter shows as 140 TB and 147 TB).

For further entitlement and actual capacity calculation, use KB 313548 and the included script.