Partitioning storage unit disks for an Intel host running VMware ESX Server

This section provides information about partitioning storage unit disks for an Intel host running VMware ESX Server.

Before you create a VMFS file system, partition the disk by using the fdisk utility. You have to specify the special device file of the disk that you want to partition when you run fdisk. The type of the partition that will be used by VMFS has to be fb (must be set with t command of fdisk).

To identify the special device file to use, you must run the command: vmkfstools –N vmhba<C>:<T>:<D>:0 where <C> is the virtual host adapter number, <T> is the SCSI ID of the storage unit, and <D> is the LUN number of the disk.

[root@denethor root]# vmkfstools -N vmhba0:4:60:0
/dev/vsd60

See Figure 1 for an example of different fdisk utility options and Figure 2 for an example of primary partition on the disk /dev/vsd71.

Figure 1. Example of the different options for the fdisk utility:

[root@denethor root]# fdisk /dev/vsd71

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 3160.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): m
Command action
   a   toggle a bootable flag
   b   edit bsd disklabel
   c   toggle the dos compatibility flag
   d   delete a partition
   l   list known partition types
   m   print this menu
   n   add a new partition
   o   create a new empty DOS partition table
   p   print the partition table
   q   quit without saving changes
   s   create a new empty Sun disklabel
   t   change a partition's system id
   u   change display/entry units
   v   verify the partition table
   w   write table to disk and exit
   x   extra functionality (experts only)

Figure 2. Example of primary partition on the disk /dev/vsd71

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-3160, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-3160, default 3160):
Using default value 3160

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/vsd71: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 3160 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

      Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/vsd71p1             1      3160  25382668+  83  Linux

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): fb
Changed system type of partition 1 to fb (Unknown)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/vsd71: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 3160 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

      Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/vsd71p1             1      3160  25382668+  fb  Unknown