After creating datastores, you can perform several administrative operations on the datastores, such as renaming, unmounting, or removing the datastore. Certain operations, for example, renaming, are available for all types of datastores. Others, such as deleting the datastore, apply only to VMFS datastores.

Change Datastore Name

Use the vSphere Client to change the name of an existing datastore. You can rename the datastore that has virtual machines running on it without any negative impact.

Note: If the host is managed by vCenter Server, you cannot rename the datastore by directly accessing the host from the VMware Host Client. You must rename the datastore from vCenter Server.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the datastore.
  2. Right-click the datastore to rename, and select Rename.
  3. Enter a new datastore name.
    The system enforces an 80 character limit for the datastore name.

Results

The new name appears on all hosts that have access to the datastore.

Unmount Datastores

When you unmount a datastore, it remains intact, but can no longer be seen from the hosts that you specify. The datastore continues to appear on other hosts, where it remains mounted.

Do not perform any configuration operations that might result in I/O to the datastore while the unmounting is in progress.
Note: Make sure that the datastore is not used by vSphere HA Heartbeating. vSphere HA Heartbeating does not prevent you from unmounting the datastore. However, if the datastore is used for heartbeating, unmounting it might cause the host to fail and restart any active virtual machine.

Prerequisites

When appropriate, before unmounting datastores, make sure that the following prerequisites are met:

  • No virtual machines reside on the datastore.
  • Storage DRS does not manage the datastore.
  • Storage I/O Control is deactivated for this datastore.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the datastore.
  2. Right-click the datastore and select Unmount Datastore.
  3. If the datastore is shared, select the hosts from which to unmount the datastore.
  4. Confirm that you want to unmount the datastore.

Results

After you unmount a VMFS datastore from all hosts, the datastore is marked as inactive. If you unmount an NFS or a Virtual Volumes datastore from all hosts, the datastore disappears from the inventory. You can mount the unmounted VMFS datastore. To mount the NFS or Virtual Volumes datastore that has been removed from the inventory, use the New Datastore wizard.

What to do next

If you unmounted the VMFS datastore as a part of a storage removal procedure, you can now detach the storage device that is backing the datastore. See Detach Storage Devices.

Mount Datastores

You can mount a datastore you previously unmounted. You can also mount a datastore on additional hosts, so that it becomes a shared datastore.

A VMFS datastore that has been unmounted from all hosts remains in inventory, but is marked as inaccessible. See Unmount Datastores.

You can use this task to mount the VMFS datastore to a specified host or multiple hosts.

If you have unmounted an NFS or a Virtual Volumes datastore from all hosts, the datastore disappears from the inventory. To mount the NFS or Virtual Volumes datastore that has been removed from the inventory, use the New Datastore wizard.

A datastore of any type that is unmounted from some hosts while being mounted on others, is shown as active in the inventory.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the datastore.
  2. Right-click the datastore to mount and select one of the following options:
    Whether you see one or another option depends on the type of datastore you use.
  3. Select the hosts that should access the datastore and click OK.
  4. To list all hosts that share the datastore, navigate to the datastore, and click the Hosts tab.

Remove VMFS Datastores

You can delete any type of VMFS datastore, including copies that you have mounted without resignaturing. When you delete a datastore, it is destroyed and disappears from all hosts that have access to the datastore.

Note: The delete operation for the datastore permanently deletes all files associated with virtual machines on the datastore. Although you can delete the datastore without unmounting, it is preferable that you unmount the datastore first.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the datastore.
  2. Right-click the datastore to remove, and select Delete Datastore.
  3. Confirm that you want to remove the datastore.