Resizing Disks used in a MSCS in VMWare

To take a backup of the VMDK:

Stop the cluster nodes.

Rename the VMDK that needs to be expanded with the command:

vmkfstools -E

Clone the VMDK to a thin volume using the original name with the command:

vmkfstools -I -d thin

Grow the clone with the command:

vmkfstools -X

Inflate the cloned VMDK with the command:

vmkfstools -j

Start the cluster.

Remove the old VMDK from the datastore.

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backup the vmdk

1. vmkfstools –E servervm.vmdk servervm_old.vmdk (this renames the vmdk)

2. vmkfstools –i servervm_old.vmdk servervm.vmdk –d thin (clones the renamed vmdk to original name in thin format)

3 vmkfstools –X 200G servervm.vmdk (expand the available size to 200 GB)

4. vmkfstools –j servervm.vmdk (inflates the vmdk in eargerzeroedthick format)

Conclusion: I think its just another way to redo the metadata on the VMDK files so it reads the new resized disk properly...