I'm facing a strange problem with my ESXi 6.7 host where a 3TB VMDK file is being detected as just 32GB in the virtual machine settings. The VMDK was created on the same ESXi host and works fine when attached to another VM. However, when I shut down the VM that has the disk attached and connect it to a different VM, the size issue arises. If I reconnect it to the original VM, it shows the correct 3TB size again. The disk descriptor appears to be fine, and the -flat.vmdk file shows the correct size as well. Does anyone have any ideas on what's causing this?
3 Answers
Check the partition table inside the `DC_2-flat.vmdk`. Also, see if the volume is showing as Thin Provisioned; it shouldn't be. If everything looks okay there, you might try toggling it to Thin Provisioned and back again to see if it clears up the issue.
This could be related to how the controller is set up. In ESXi 6.7, VMDKs typically aren’t supposed to be connected to multiple VMs at once. While they’ll display correctly on the VM that created the VMDK, other VMs may not recognize the proper size. This issue was addressed in ESXi 7.0 with shared VMDK support, but make sure the disk controller is configured correctly.
It sounds like you might be dealing with a caching glitch in the VMDK metadata. Instead of just detaching and reattaching the disk, try completely removing it from the second VM and adding it again fresh. Sometimes ESXi gets mixed up about the disk geometry, especially with VMs that have different hardware versions or controller types.
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