I have an ESXi 4.1 server (VMFS 3.33) , stand alone, older server, hosting a single VM. When I created the server, I made the local datastore a 1MB block size because the VM would never grow above 256GB. As of a few days ago, our backups started failing with the following message:
Create virtual machine snapshot vmname
File vmname.vmx is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore
I checked the VM files and the vmname.vmdk file was more than 256GB.
I cannot storage vMotion this VM somewhere else being a standalone server, I cannot add storage to this server as it is old and has no more room for hard drives. I guess my only option is to do an in place upgrade of this host to ESXi v5.1 and have the VMFS level go from 3 to 5. I am hesitant to do this with no good backup for at least a week.
Anyway, does anyone know HOW this VM grew to greater than 256GB in the first place? How is it still running if the system should technically not be able to recognize the file(s)?
Thank for your time all.
- Dave Claussen