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What is the proper way to remove a datastore from an ESXi 5 server?
I'm looking for recommendations for the proper way to remove a datastore from an ESXi 5 server? When I say "remove" think of it as decommissioning the datastore; we don't need to save the data and we are not planning on bringing it back. In the past, we would unmap the underlying volume and remove it from the storage group but this has caused a few problems. The our current process is very slow but appears to be safe in that we don't have issues with inaccessible devices hanging the ESXi servers. Thanks for your feedback.
WorldPolice
123 Posts
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May 13th, 2013 12:00
You can delete the datastore or unmount it then detach the device by right-clicking on the device in question in the Devices view under Configuration/Storage in the vSphere Client. From that point you can remove the device from your storage group. If you check out our Symmetrix/VMware TechBook you can find an example of detaching a volume - http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/solution-overview/h2529-vmware-esx-svr-w-symmetrix-wp-ldv.pdf pg. 93 walks through the process.
kastlr
26 Posts
1
May 13th, 2013 14:00
Hi,
check the following VMware article.
Unmounting a LUN or Detaching a Datastore/Storage Device from multiple ESXi 5.x hosts
Regards,
Ralf
cincystorage
2 Intern
2 Intern
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467 Posts
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May 14th, 2013 02:00
As a matter of policy I always like to do this when a host is in maintenance mode.. This goes back to hosts having issues in 4.x when datastores were removed...
You_Want_How_Ma
53 Posts
0
May 15th, 2013 10:00
Thanks for all the replies. We are following the unmount, detach, delete process. The problem is we have a very large environment where a datastore may be available up to 100 ESXi servers. It is time consuming to remove datastores this way. I was hoping someone had a way to remove the datastore from one host and allow the others to see the change similar to the way you can add a datastore to one host and simply rescan the others.
dynamox
2 Intern
2 Intern
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20.4K Posts
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May 15th, 2013 11:00
can you do it using VSI ?
codyhosterman
286 Posts
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May 15th, 2013 11:00
No, VSI does not have this ability.
codyhosterman
286 Posts
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May 15th, 2013 11:00
Might want to look into writing a PowerCLI script that takes in a parameter like the NAA of a device and/or the datastore name and then iterates through your hosts performing these actions.
kastlr
26 Posts
0
May 16th, 2013 01:00
Hi,
just need to mention that per following VMware documents the storage configuration maximums are 64 host per VMFS datastore.
Regards,
Ralf
You_Want_How_Ma
53 Posts
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May 16th, 2013 11:00
Did this change in ESXi 5.0? I thought it was 128. Either way, we have changed our design and now are limiting new volumes to 30 systems. Still enough systems to want a better removal method. The real issue is the existing datastores that are still shared by all hosts that we are decommissioning.