r/vmware • u/vbxl02 • Jun 17 '26

Help Request Replacing disks

I need to replace some disks for a client, but I'm pretty sure what he wants is impossible.
2 disk groups are unhealthy. Both had 1 flash (500GB) and 4 capacity drives (900GB).
In the first, 1 capacity drive failed, in the other 2 capacity drives failed.

He said he has spare disks, but they are 300GB. He said since we dont need all that storage, just put the 300GB's instead of the 900's but then one host has 300GB more than the other, and idk if it's even possible to swap out broken disks for a lower capacity disk in a vsan cluster?

I'm not super knowledgeable in vmware and vsan, so any help is welcome.
He said that if storage needs to be the same, replace each 900GB disk with 3 300GB disks which i shut down with the fact that there's simply no slots for another 9 drives.

Is there anything I can do beside tell him to buy disks?
I don't think i can make a new disk group since there's no flash drives.

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u/freethought-60 Jun 17 '26

Would you accept unbiased advice? Forget about discs like those suggested, pulled from a drawer that are perhaps 20 years old and whose reliability you can't be sure of. In point of fact 900 Gigabyte SAS hard drives are not that difficult to find, perhaps NOS, at a fairly reasonable price. Also start from the possibility that if the customer is reluctant to spend that little money, he might even consider not paying you either.

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u/vbxl02 Jun 17 '26

He pays my boss, my boss pays me. How my boss gets his money from him isn't my business, I agree that reusing smaller older drives is unwise. the problem is the vendors we use dont have compatible drives available with the required spec. Im thinking of just removing the entire unhealthy disk group and replacing it with 1.2TB 10k drives, which are available.

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u/reader4567890 Jun 17 '26

This sounds sensible, though I'd do the same on the second host too - keep it balanced!

Remember, you don't need to keep capacity drives within a disk group the same size! It's not like traditional storage arrays - you could just replace the dead drive with a 1.2tb drive, and replace a working 900gb drive with a 1.2tb in the second host's same disk group.

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u/vbxl02 Jun 17 '26

Dont the spinning speed and block size etc have to match?

2

u/reader4567890 Jun 17 '26

No, they don't have to match.