With memory hot add, you can add memory resources for a virtual machine while that virtual machine is turned on.

Enabling memory hot add produces extra memory overhead on the ESXi host for the virtual machine.

Prerequisites

  • Power off the virtual machine.
  • Verify that the virtual machine has a guest operating system that supports memory hot add capabilities.
  • Verify that the virtual machine compatibility is ESXi 4.x and later.
  • Verify that VMware Tools is installed.

Procedure

  1. Click Virtual Machines in the VMware Host Client inventory.
  2. Right-click a virtual machine in the list and select Edit settings from the pop-up menu.
  3. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Memory and enable Memory Hot Plug.
  4. Click Save.