ESX 3.5 – Partitions
I get asked this question many times… what are the best practices for partitions with ESX 3.5.
Here are the settings that I use…
Setting primary partitions
Best practices state that the following partitions should be made “Primary” partitions:
Table 3 – Primary Partitions
Mount Point Partition Type Size in MB
/boot ext3 100 MB
/ ext3 2048 MB
N/A swap 1600 MB
This can be accomplished by selecting each of the aforementioned partitions (one at a time) and clicking the “Edit” button. The configuration options for that partition/file system will be brought up. Select (turn on) the checkbox option near the bottom of the box labeled “Force to be a primary partition”. Do this for each of 3 file systems listed above, clicking “OK” after fixing each file system.
Configuring partitions
The following table adheres to VMware best practices:
Extended Partitions
Mount Point Partition Type Size in MB
/var ext3 4096 MB
/tmp ext3 1024 MB
/opt ext3 2048 MB
/home ext3 1024 MB
vmkcore 100 MB
N/A vmfs Remaining space
