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VMware ESX Server 2.1
Features | Documentation | Knowledge Base | Discussion Forums In ESX Server 2.1, a VMFS-2 volume can span multiple partitions, across the same or multiple (up to 32) LUNs or physical disks. A VMFS-2 volume is a logical grouping of physical extents. Each physical extent is part of a disk; for example, a physical disk partition. That is, a physical extent is a disk partition that is part of a VMFS-2 volume. By contrast, VMFS-1 volumes are limited to a single physical extent. You can view the VMFS volumes on your ESX Server at any time by changing directories to the /vmfs directory, then listing its contents. You can use vmkfstools -P <VMFS_volume_label>, to obtain more details about your VMFS volume.
# cd /vmfs The entries in the /vmfs directory are updated dynamically. Any changes you make to VMFS-2 volumes through the VMware Management Interface are immediately reflected in this directory. For more details on vmkfstools, see Using vmkfstools. If you create a VMFS volume on a SCSI disk or partition, you can give a label to that volume and use that label when specifying VMFS files on that volume. For instance, suppose you have a VMFS volume on the SCSI partition vmhba0:3:0:1 and have created a VMFS file nt4.dsk. You can label that volume by using a vmkfstools command such as: vmkfstools -S mydisk vmhba0:3:0:1 You can then refer to the nt4.dsk file as mydisk:nt4.dsk (instead of vmhba0:3:0:1:nt4.dsk) in a virtual machine configuration file and in other vmkfstools commands. For more information on vmkfstools, see vmkfstools Options. If there is no persistent binding, then labelling VMFS volumes is especially useful if you may be adding SCSI adapters or disks to your system. The actual disk and target numbers specifying a particular VMFS may change, but the label stays the same. Also, other ESX Servers see the same label, which is useful for LUN ID between servers. For more information, see Using Persistent Bindings. |
