Hi,
First of all, you won't be able to create a partition through vMA. You will have to SSH into the ESXi server directly and run partedUtil command.
Once you are SSHed into the ESXi server, check the naa ID:
- cd /vmfs/devices/disks
- Find the naa ID you would like to format. The following is a sample output, see the ":1" in the end of naa.60050768018180732000000000000e97? This represents there is a partition. The naa ID with naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a is the one I am going to create a partition.
- -rw------- 1 root root 549755813888 Aug 1 03:01 naa.60050768018180732000000000000e97
- -rw------- 1 root root 549754748416 Aug 1 03:01 naa.60050768018180732000000000000e97:1
- -rw------- 1 root root 10737418240 Aug 1 03:01 naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a
- Copy the naa ID and run partedUtil get naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a to get the endSector. The output is:
- 1305 255 63 20971520
- 20971520 is the endSector you will need.
- Create a partition by running partedUtil set "/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a" "1 2048 20964824 251 0"
- If success, it won't generate any error messages.
- startSector value is 2048 and this is for VMFS5 and VMFS3 with 8MB of Blocksize.
- Create VMFS Volume using vmkfstools, vmkfstools -C vmfs5 -S Test_VMFS_Volume /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a:1
- The output will be like the following:
- VMFS5 file system creation is deprecated on a BIOS/MBR partition on device 'naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a:1'
Checking if remote hosts are using this device as a valid file system. This may take a few seconds...
Creating vmfs5 file system on "naa.60050768018180732000000000000e9a:1" with blockSize 1048576 and volume label "Test_VMFS_Volume".
Successfully created new volume: 51f9dd19-ca313600-84d1-0015177b0113
- Rescan the HBAs: esxcli storage core adapter rescan -a
- Check the VMFS Volume: esxcli storage filesystem list
- The output will be:
- /vmfs/volumes/51f9dd19-ca313600-84d1-0015177b0113 Test_VMFS_Volume 51f9dd19-ca313600-84d1-0015177b0113 true VMFS-5 10468982784 9546235904
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Steven.