When using the vSphere web client to import OVAs, all virtual machine disks are allocated Thick even if Thin Provisioning is selected. This prevents the expansion of the disk needed per the footprint specification.

Use the following steps to allow the imported disks of the VMs to be converted to Thin Provisioning, expanding to the footprint allocation unit. The following describes the process for Hard Disk 3, since that is the disk that needs to be resized.

Note: This applies to vSAN shared storage.
  1. A new VM Storage policy must be defined because the default storage policy not being enforced with ova import and the need to apply the policy to the new VMs.
    1. Within the vSphere Client navigate to the Menu tab and select Policies and Profiles.
    2. Select VM Storage Policies from the left navigation menu.
    3. Select the vSAN default Storage Policy under the Name column.
    4. Click Clone from the top menu tab.
    5. Name the new storage policy, for example Clone vSAN Storage Policy.
    6. Click Next. (Change nothine else, except the name.)
    7. Verify Thin provisioning is selected in the Object space reservation field.
    8. Click FINISH to save the profile.
  2. Apply the new profile to all the VMs that need disk expansion.
    1. Right-click the VM, select VM Policies, and click Edit VM Storage Policies.
    2. Click the sliding button to enable Configure per disk the Edit VM Storage Policies dialog box. (The sliding button turns green when enabled.)
    3. Click the arrow next to the Name column, and select the new storage profile. (In the example the new storage policy is Clone vSAN Storage Policy.)

      This will then recalculate and show a summary of the conversion to Thin Provision based on the new storage policy.

    4. Click OK.
    5. Right-click the VM and select Edit Settings.
    6. Click the arrow by Hard Disk 3 to expand the summary and reveal the maximum thin provisioning size.
    7. Adjust the size according to the footprint and click OK.
    8. Repeat the process for all VMs that need storage adjustments.
    9. The VMs are now ready for power on.
      Note: Because of Thin provisioning and over commitment, the increments of which the Maximum Size permitted is limited to that of the maximum size of the datastore for which the VM storage resides. If additional space is needed that exceeds the datastore size, repeat steps 2e thru 2i until allocation of space is adjusted.

      For example, if your datastore maximum capacity is 9 TB, the next datastore Maximum size would be 18 TB.