Hey everyone! I'm trying to migrate a virtual machine from a standalone ESXi host that has local storage to a VMware cluster linked to an iSCSI SAN. The VM is quite large, around 500 GB, so I'm really hoping to keep the downtime to a minimum. I've considered powering off the VM, using SCP to transfer the VM's folder to the SAN datastore, and then re-registering the VM, but I'm looking for more efficient options.
I've tried using Veeam quick migration with a smaller VM, which worked fine, but when I attempted it with a 200 GB VM, it failed near the end at 98%. I want to avoid spending 2-3 hours on another potentially failed transfer. What methods would you recommend for this migration? Appreciate any advice!
1 Answer
You could try adding the standalone ESXi host to your vCenter server, even if it means creating a new cluster for it. Once it's added, you might be able to use vMotion to migrate the VM without any downtime! Just keep in mind that the standalone host needs to have visibility to the SAN for this to work, so it's a consideration.
I thought vMotion would only work if the standalone host can actually see the SAN, but maybe I've got that wrong. My ESXi host is just using local storage and isn’t connected to the SAN right now.