Hi Andrew -

Though the Community Hub is more for Veeam questions (just FYI), we can still assist. You should be able to still add storage space to the VM. Power down the VM if possible (not needed, but recommended), change the disk space amount (increase) to the amount you want, power the VM back on, go into Disk Managment, rt-click and Rescan the disks. Then rt-click the Volume and select Extend and finish the increase Volume wizard.

This is the proper way if you do indeed have enough space on the underlying datastore/storage the VM virtual disk resides on.

When you try to expand the OS drive in VMware what does the max size show you?  It might be that the datastore your VM is on does not have enough space to expand it. Otherwise as noted you should be able to expand it.  If the datastore then you need to expand that first.

Or maybe the VM has a snapshot? If you have a snashot you can’t increase the disks.

Good call here Wesley (I think you meant “can’t” increase the disk with a snap? ). This is true, Andrew. If you have a snapshot on the VM, before you can increase the disk size, you need to consolidate the snaphot (select ‘Delete All’ in VMware snapshot manager to save the data, then delete the delta snapshot disk).

Ah yes the one thing we always forget is snapshots.

Hi, tried this option. But it didn’t allow me to alter the allocated disk space under the properties for VM disk storage. Thank you

Do you have permissions in vCenter to do so? Do you have a snapshot on your VM? 

Hi Chris,

Checked the datastore and it got adequate freespace to be used. Thanks

Can you please share a screenshot of the VM properties? 

Ok then it must be a snapshot on the VM then only explanation or permissions but if you are admin it is good.

Hi Wesmrt,
Thanks for your feedback.

I checked, it got a snapshot. However, I tried increasing the size of the disk space which connected to a datastore with adequate free disk space, it still doesn’t allow me to increase the size. May be as mentioned by ‘Coolsport00’, I may need to check the permissions of the vCenter to performt the task. If I come across an issue, will post it on this thread. Thanks a lot for all of your invaluable coomments.

Regards,

Andrew

Andrew - all you have to do is remove the snap as I shared above & you should then be able to increase the disk size. 

As noted you cannot extend a disk with a snapshot present. Remove it and it will work.

Hi Andrew - I just wanted to provide you with some visuals of a test VM and what a snap does to VM properties. See below:

This is the snap on a test VM I have:

With the above snapshot, the VM’s disk properties to increase it is greyed out:

With the snapshot removed, as shown below:

You can then modify the VM disk size:

Hope that helps. Let us know.

Hi Team,

I suspect it could be something to do with the permissions from the vCentre server.

Just wondering whether there is a document (or even a blog) or any steps that needs to be taken to check the said permissions which may potentially not allowing me to expand the current disk capacity?

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

Andrew

You can find permissions documents here - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.security.doc/GUID-5372F580-5C23-4E9C-8A4E-EF1B4DD9033E.html

Hi Andrew -

The only way we can give you the best answer is to understand your role in vCenter. If you know what group or role you’re a part of, then you can determne what permissions you have within vCenter, by viewing the Permissions tab. If you click on the vCenter object, or Datacenter object, or Cluster object, or even VM or folders in vCenter, you can then look over to the right and see a Permissions tab and view permissions at that given vCenter object level. 

Have you even checked for a snapshot as noted above?

Hi Andrew - I just wanted to provide you with some visuals of a test VM and what a snap does to VM properties. See below:

This is the snap on a test VM I have:

With the above snapshot, the VM’s disk properties to increase it is greyed out:

With the snapshot removed, as shown below:

You can then modify the VM disk size:

Hope that helps. Let us know.

Hi Coolsport00,

Thanks a lot for your effort and for the prompt reply.

I witness similar conditions when I access the VM machine from the vCenter server. I am in the process of deleting the snapshot created a few days ago (the only snapshot) and will try to increase the disk space as specified from the vCenter server.

I believe there will be no permissions set on the vCenter for the VM machines (Guest OSs running on the ESXi host).

Will update shortly.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

Andrew

Ok Andrew..glad to hear. I think you’ll be good to go once you remove the snapshot. Keep us updated on the progress.

Hi Coolsport00,

Thanks a lot. You are a gem.

Yes, after deleting the snapshot, was able to increase the disk capacity from the vCenter server.

Thank you once again.

Have a great day.

Kind regards,

Andrew

Glad to hear you were able to get it sorted Andrew. Glad to assist. 

Great to hear you resolved the issue.

Thank you Chris and all of you who guided me in the right direction.