My current physical lab consists of three Dell R620s that boot off an internal Dual SD module (IDSDM) with ESXi 6.5 as the hypervisor. I've been putting off upgrading to vSphere 7 for several reasons but now that I've committed to upgrading to vCenter Server 7 and ESXi 7, I did encounter an issue with the boot partition for ESXi of it not having enough space - I use 2 GB cards. Time for an upgrade.

Lot's of us running a vSphere Lab at home have to be mindful of the electrical costs associated with using physical servers. In my case, I have three (3) Dell R620's, one FreeNAS server, and two Cisco switches. Electrical costs are always on my mind, especially now that I work from home and use more electricity. 

Expanding a disk on a virtual machine is a relatively easy and common daily task to do within your VMware environment.  So it shocked me when I tried to expand the disk on a production VM, and the process was completed with an error but also powered the VM off.

 As a System Administrator or System Engineer, one of the most frequent requests you'll receive is to expand the disk size on virtual Windows Servers and Windows Desktops. Most of the time, it's straightforward: 1) make sure you have enough space on the SAN, 2)

Sometimes you need a quick and temporary solution to a problem due to time constraints. Examples that come to mind are putting on a spare tire to get to your following location or using duct tape to fix your glasses. None of these provide a permanent solution, but they accomplish your goal of getting something done quickly.

You've upgraded to the latest version of vCenter Server, ESXi, VMware Tools, and either scheduled the VM Hardware upgrade on the next reboot or you've manually upgraded the hardware version for each machine. Everything has gone according to plan with no issues during the scheduled maintenance. However, after everything has been done, you find that one of your 3rd party solutions no longer works and you find yourself staring at a list of errors.

Are you looking to get started with VMware and create your own home lab? One of the best ways to save money is to purchase a VMUG membership, which offers discounts on products and services. You can also get discounted licenses for your lab. Learn more about how to get the most out of your subscription and use it to set up a home lab.