I bet you have
installed ESXi multiple times by now, have you ever noticed that we do not get
any option to modify the partition layout? this is because ESXi Partitions are
automatically set by the installation process.
Quick run thru
on the history, Once upon a time, long before the coming of ESXi and when there
was only ESX. Taking into account the native behavior of Linux architecture in
addition to the ESX specific characteristics, partitioning best practices
evolved. While not every administrator will agree on the exact size a given
partition should be, a pattern in how ESX is properly partitioned is fairly
evident, plus or minus the partition size variance that fits the personal taste
of the administrator or perhaps company baseline policies or standards. Right
there is a good a reason as any to partition manually ,hence Partitioning
became Automatic while installation.
Now let us take
a deep dive, First of, What
are the ESXi partition, take a look a the below picture.
ESXi partitions
description :
Partition 1: systemPartition -> Bootloader Partition (4MB ) -> This
Partition is needed for Booting
Partition 5: linuxNative -> /bootbank (250MB) -> The
hypervisor image is located on this Partition
Partition 6: linuxNative -> /altbootbank ( 250MB) -> After ESXi upgrade,
the current image is copied from the bootbank partition.
Partition 7: vmkDiagnostic -> First Diagnostic Partition (110MB) ->
For PSOD crash.
Partition
8: linuxNative -> /store (286MB) -> This is the product locker which
contains the VMtools.
Partition
9: vmkDiagnostic -> Second Diagnostic Partition ( 2.5 GB) -> This is the
vmkDiagnostic partition
Partition
2: linuxNative -> /scratch (4GB) -> This is for the ESXi logs (
non-presistant)
Partition
3: VMFS datastore -> For datastores ( only created if installation is done
on non-flash memory)
The partition
table format is GPT from 5.x and previously it was traditional MBR table.
How
to find the partition details on an ESXi:
First get the
disk on which the ESXi is installed, you can run # ls /dev/disks -lh to get the
disk details. Then you can use # partedUtil getptbl /disk -> this will
give an output like the below:
Why
do I have to know about ESXi partitions:
You get a
better understanding of the ESXi configuration and also while troubleshooting
based on PSOD crashes, Scartch partition setup or while consulting customers on
best practices these information would give you a hand. Also you can be
confident when you know which partition is used for which operation.
Article which i
referred - https://www.vmwarearena.com/what-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-esxi-partition/
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