File is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '

I got this error when trying to take a snapshot of a VM with a 1TB Thin Provisioned HDD:



Create virtual machine snapshot VM NAME


File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>


The used space was only around 9GB.

The problem here is VMFS block size. When I formatted the VMFS LUN I did it using 4MB block size (seeing as how my largest VMDK file would be 1TB).

However (and I should have known this), the file size was just over 1TB (1,073,742,000.00KB). Had I created it with 900GB I probably would have been ok.

The solution? I moved the VM to a VMFS datastore that had 8MB block size (this allows for 2TB files).

Depending on who you talk to people will say that its a waste of space. I dont think it is. Yes, you do have several files attached to a VM that take only 20-30k (but because of the VMFS block size are actually taking 8MB for each file) but in the long run if you need a large VMDK file you need to do this. You lose more space when creating the LUN (my 1.5TB LUN is actually 1.36TB once I format) than you would by selecting a bigger block size.

For those of you not familiar with block size, you have a few options:


• 1MB block size – 256GB maximum file size
• 2MB block size – 512GB maximum file size
• 4MB block size – 1024GB maximum file size
• 8MB block size – 2048GB maximum file size

The block size determines the maximum size for any one file on the VMFS datastore. So, if you think you will need a VM with a hard drive size of 256GB you will need to have a 1MB block size, 512GB you will need 2MB, so on and so forth. Do not get this confused with the files that are INSIDE the VM (ie, windows OS files, etc). The block size is for the VMDK file and the files associated with the VM (config files, snapshot files, etc.)

The consistency check failed for the component Microsoft Exchange Server\Microsoft Information Store\

I was getting the above error when trying to backup our Exchange environment. I was using the Windows 2008 R2 backup utility.

It was working previously as I was backing up while migrating users from our 2003 Server. We moved several people one day and noticed that we only had around 6GB on our partition that held our log files. We started the backup utility and after several minutes we got this error. Even though the backup would continue we would get a message saying that we could not restore from this backup. We also noticed that the logs were not getting removed.

After much searching I found a post on the Microsoft Technet site that mentioned enabling circular logging, dismount and then remount the databases and then removing circular logging with another dismount and remount of the databases. This pretty much just deletes the logs for each database.

While this isn't the most ideal way (since now you can't replay your logs if anything happened between this step and a full backup), it worked and we were able to do a full backup.

We had to use the Windows backup utility until we got our third party backup software working properly.

Exchange 2010 and Outlook Issues

After installing Exchange 2010 I was getting errors in the event viewer and in Outlook I couldn't view the GAL and every couple minutes I would get a prompt that said Outlook was trying to get retrieve data from exchangeserver.domain.com.

Another issue that would happen is when removing the outlook profile and re creating, it would not find the user.

After searching and looking at posts the fix was simple.

Reboot the Domain Controllers and then Exchange 2010.

Exchange 2010 Event ID 1002

I'm in the middle of migrating to Exchange 2010 from Exchange 2003. During installation, the mailbox role failed with this error:

Error:
The following error was generated when "$error.Clear();
              $InstallerScriptFileName = 'Scripts\ManageScheduledTask.ps1'
              $OneCopyScriptFileName = 'Scripts\CheckDatabaseRedundancy.ps1'
              $PsInstallerScriptPath = Join-Path $RoleInstallPath $InstallerScriptFileName
              $PsOneCopyScriptPath = Join-Path $RoleInstallPath $OneCopyScriptFileName
            
                  & $PsInstallerScriptPath -RunFromSetup -Install -DeleteExisting -ServerName $RoleNetBIOSName -TaskName "Database One Copy Alert" -PsScriptPath $PsOneCopyScriptPath -PsScriptArgs "-MonitoringContext -ShowDetailedErrors -ErrorAction:Continue" -Verbose
        " was run: "[ManageScheduledTask.ps1] Could not find script: '\\SERVERNAME\C$\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts\CheckDatabaseRedundancy.ps1'.".

[ManageScheduledTask.ps1] Could not find script: '\\SERVERNAME\C$\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts\CheckDatabaseRedundancy.ps1'.
Click here for help... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms.exch.err.default(EXCHG.141).aspx?v=14.1.218.11&e=ms.exch.err.Ex88D115&l=0&cl=cp

Elapsed Time: 00:00:01


Finalizing Setup
Cancelled

When looking at the error, the install is trying to go through the network and access the scripts from C$. This is strange since I ran the install from the local hard drive.

After a lot of searching it seems to me as though Microsoft put a lot of protection on the C$ share. No matter what I did I was unable to connect to the C$ share.

What I ended up doing was installing Exchange 2010 to my D drive where the D$ share worked with no problem.

While this is not the best fix (what happens if you don't have an extra partition?), I was able to get it installed and continue with my migration.

If anyone has come across this before or knows the fix to allow C$ to be accessed through the network, please post.

****UPDATE JUNE 26th 2012****
I found out how to make C$ accessible from the network and from the computer. Open your network connections and go the to the TCP/IP Settings (IPv4). Click Properties and then click Advanced. Click the WINS Tab and then select the radio button for "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP."

This will require a reboot.