If you run out of disk space, you can increase the size of the disk. You can change the virtual device node and the persistence mode for virtual disk configuration for a virtual machine.

Prerequisites

If you change the disk mode to Independent - Nonpersistent or from Independent - Nonpersistent, power off the virtual machine.

Verify that you have the following privileges:
  • Virtual machine.Change Configuration.Modify device settings on the virtual machine.
  • Virtual machine.Configuration.Extend virtual disk on the virtual machine.
  • Datastore.Allocate space on the datastore.

Procedure

  1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
  2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Hard disk to view or change the disk settings, and click OK.
    Option Description
    Maximum Size Shows the maximum size of this hard disk on this VM.
    Note: Extending the size of a virtual hard disk causes stun time for the virtual machine. The stun time is longer if the virtual disk is of the Eager Zeroed Thick type.
    VM storage policy Select one of the available storage policies. See the vSphere Storage documentation for details.
    Note: You cannot change the VM storage policy of an existing PMem hard disk. You also cannot change the storage policy of an existing non-PMem disk to Host-local PMem Default Storage Policy.
    Type Shows the storage type. You cannot change this setting for an existing hard disk. You choose the storage type of a hard disk when you add the hard disk to the virtual machine. For more information about storage types and available disk formats, see the vSphere Storage documentation.
    Sharing Specifies sharing information.
    Disk File Lists disk files on the datastore.
    Shares Shares is a value that represents the relative metric for controlling disk bandwidth. The values Low, Normal, High, and Custom are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the host.
    Limit - IOPs Allows you to customize IOPs. This value is the upper limit of I/O operations per second allocated to the virtual disk.
    Disk mode Disk mode determines how a virtual disk is affected by snapshots.
    You have the following options:
    • Dependent: Dependent mode is the default disk mode. When you take a snapshot of a virtual machine, dependent disks are included in snapshots. When you revert to the previous snapshot, all data are reverted to the point of taking a snapshot.
    • Independent - Persistent: Disks in persistent mode behave like conventional disks on your physical computer. All data written to a disk in persistent mode are written permanently to the disk even if you revert a snapshot. When you power off or reset a virtual machine, the disk and all its snapshots are preserved.
    • Independent - Nonpersistent: Disks in nonpersistent mode behave like read-only disks. Changes to disks in nonpersistent mode are discarded when you power off or reset the virtual machine. With nonpersistent mode, you can restart the virtual machine with a virtual disk in the same state every time. Changes to the disk are written to and read from a redo log file that is deleted when you power off or reset a virtual machine, or you delete a snapshot.
    Virtual Device Node Displays the virtual device node.