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New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2025 7:26 pm
by tanjum
Hi,
I have created a tes tVM in an HA vSAN setup (vSAN Free) the VM is deployed successfully but I can't seem to find where the files are actually in the StarWind system..
Can anyone share the location of where the VM files are stored.
I have checked the below directories, there is nothing in either of them..
Code: Select all
root@vSAN1:~# cd /mnt/md0/
root@vSAN1:/mnt/md0# ls -lh
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 112 Aug 18 18:53 vSANStrg
root@vSAN1:/mnt/md0# ls -lh vSANStrg/
total 196G
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33 Aug 18 17:45 starwind-volume-config.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 6 Aug 18 17:48 vsn
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.0K Aug 18 18:54 vsn_HA.swdsk.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 196G Aug 18 19:20 vsn.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.0K Aug 18 18:53 vsn.swdsk.bak
root@vSAN1:/mnt/md0# ls -lh vSANStrg/vsn
total 0
Starwind Storage in ESXi, Void1 is a VM..
Code: Select all
[root@localhost:/vmfs/volumes/68a3794e-6021a08c-a533-000c29268e35] pwd
/vmfs/volumes/StarWind1
[root@localhost:/vmfs/volumes/68a3794e-6021a08c-a533-000c29268e35] ls -lh
total 256
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 72.0K Aug 18 19:07 Void1
I need to know the location as I need to copy VM files there via SCP and can then register them from ESXi.
I understand I can upload from ESXi Web Browser but this does not always work as expected with large files as experienced, and that I will have to access it via VPN which if disconnects I will have to restart all over again.
I have 3 large files, amounting to about ~1TB..
Re: New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2025 7:46 pm
by yaroslav (staff)
Hi,
Inside StarWind CVM you can see only *.img, the file that is published over iSCSI. You can theoretically mount to anything that recognises VMFS (e.g., copy it or connect over iSCSI) and vrowse it.
The easiest will be connecting to ESXi host though. That file has FS on it. Connect to the host you connected yhat volume to abd browse that FS (i.e., VMFS) for your client VM files. In other words, connect to ESXi via WinSCP > locate the device > see your VM files. You can also use ESXi or vCenter WEB UI to download or upload the files.
You can also scp that file off the host. If you want to browse inside the VM, connect somehow to that VM.
Re: New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2025 7:49 pm
by tanjum
Thanks yaroslav,
I understand it now, I need to perform scp file copy into ESXi's storage as the vSAN storage will appear there..
I do a lot of testing, and shutdown the vSAN systems but after rebooting it shows the below notification, and the the disks now shows as Limited Availability, is this normal..
The replication partner is not synchronised
How can I resynchronize the vSAN systems for HA after a reboot..
Re: New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2025 8:20 pm
by yaroslav (staff)
It is normal. A replication partner went down and therefore it was not serving storage; it needs time to catch up with the remaining node.
Please see why full sync can start
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... may-start/ .
Please connect to the CVMs with Windows-based console to see if it is fast or full sync.
See how to restart/shut down node(s)
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... installed/
Re: New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2025 9:36 pm
by tanjum
Thanks yaroslav,
Gone through them and found out about
maintenancemode.ps1 script for vSAN Free but the script throws error as storage has client connections.
Code: Select all
PS C:\Users\Win1022H2\Desktop> .\MaintenanceMode.ps1
C:\Users\Win1022H2\Desktop\MaintenanceMode.ps1 : Operation cannot be completed. Device has client connections.
At line:1 char:1
+ .\MaintenanceMode.ps1
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,MaintenanceMode.ps1
I put the host in maintenance mode but that did not remove the online connections in vSAN.
Any way to enter maintenance mode without removing datastore ?
Re: New VM Storage location in vSAN..
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2025 9:20 am
by yaroslav (staff)
You don't need to remove the datastore. Client sessions say that the storage is connected to somewhere. This being said, manipulations to FS on top will not deal with connections. Disconnecting the datastore could be the thing.
Try using $force=$true