How to clone or copy a VM on free ESXi 6.5 or 6.7 without using vCenter

🔸🔸 Check out my VMware Training Course to learn more - bit.ly/vmware8...
STUFF I RECOMMEND
👉 Speed up Your Mac - bit.ly/CleanMyM...
✖️ x.com/emilio_tech
☎️ Want to work or collaborate together? Reach me at [e-mail]
🎓 MY TRAINING COURSES 🎓 bit.ly/emiliou...
GEAR I USE
👉 Full List of my Gear: www.amazon.com...
MY GEAR (some of it…)
➤ Intel NUC Mini PC - amzn.to/3VJuer9
➤ ZimaBoard Server - amzn.to/3TNA4rM
➤ Raspberry Pi - amzn.to/3nsyShB
➤ Teltonika RUTX50 - bit.ly/teltoni...
➤ NAS 2-Bay | Terramaster FS0210 - amzn.to/44ORHN0
➤ NAS 6-Bay | Synology DS1621+ - amzn.to/3xUl5Wi
➤ NAS Rack | QNAP Rack - amzn.to/44frTdb
➤ 34" Curved Wide Monitor - amzn.to/4aL6zyF
➤ Digital Camera | Sony A7C - amzn.to/3VVt4KB
➤ Shure SM7B Mic - amzn.to/3MjPRgc
➤ Speakers | Presonus XT - amzn.to/49XH2RH
ABOUT ME:
My name is Emilio Aguero and I’m a technology enthusiast from Melbourne Australia. I’ve been into computers ever since setting up my first pentium computer years ago. I love technology and make videos about all things tech every week. Would love it if you support my channel by subscribing and staying up to date with what I'm releasing!
⮕⮕ New Videos Sundays 2pm GMT ⬅⬅
GET IN TOUCH:
👉 For any speaker, consulting, affiliate or sponsorship enquiries reach me at - [e-mail]
Check Out My Other Channels -
🖥️ Let’s Talk Tech / @techwithemilio
🍜 Love Eating / @eatingwithemilio
 Love My Mac / @mactechwithemilio
🚶Walking the Globe / @welikewalking

[@lordryck]

Thank you, that worked great. I did discover one modification that saves on the housekeeping. Create the VM without a hard drive. Then copy the VMDK file directly into that VM directory and then add it to the VM.

[@SuperJambu]

Thank you very much. It was very helpful. Simple and straight forward.

[@allanzfs]

I just copy the entire folder, after shutting down the instance to another folder(s). If the working VM fails, just rename it for further work and copy the original folder back. What I'd like is a way to script the entire process... shutdown the working OS at midnight, copy the entire folder to another location after deleting or renaming the prior back, complete the backup and then restart the original VM.

[@marcoliocops]

Good you said "I absolutely love it!"

[@TechWithEmilio]

thanks for you comment :)

[@zhimwar1367]

very helpful video, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!!!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Glad it was helpful!

[@timisw]

Thanks for this information. What about converting from Thick to Thin during the process?

[@videocity2508]

Thanks for this information. been looking to do this for days

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it helpful!

[@parahumanoid]

I have a thin-provisioned vmdk. Won't it become thick during a copy? That's especially important when cloning _potentially_ large machines that haven't grown yet, but have provisioning that would exceed the available space if we go thick. Would using command line allow us to go low-level on this operation, avoiding the management front end's smarting off?

[@jefftee448]

Easy peasy, thank you sir!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for the comment, glad you found it helpful!

[@felixdicristina]

have any particular video or idea in how to clone or move a vmware machine from a exsi server to another VM exsi server...?

[@PrzemoPSzynku]

Hi @Emilio Aguero,
Could you please create a video about how to migrate VM machine from Exsi 6.7 to another 6.7 without using vshere or vmotion.

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for the suggestion, will look into that

[@bryonmiller4326]

I have my VMs set up on thin provision, I see yours was thick. When you attached the old hard drive to the new vm you created, it ghosted out the ability to change the size. Are you able to do this with thin provision? If not is it able to be converted back once you bring it up?

[@Unstoppable939]

Great! what if you want to "copy this VM" to a different network? Do I just take the files and put them on the new host? also, does this move take the network setting or only the HDD?

[@goruby2]

Thanks

[@bostjanko]

Why not using copy of the whole vm folder... than selecting "register existing VM" and answer "I copied it" whan vsphere asks you where you've got it from? This way whole virtual HW is copied and it actually is a clone. You cloned only the disk.

[@migueldelahoz4740]

Is there a way to do it, without shutting down the virtual machine?

[@Aaron-ig8ie]

Thanks, if the original vm was an activated win server, the copy asks for activation ?

[@mohammedaliduonaji9503]

Emilio Aguero is the best trainer have seen. He pretty don't keep you in the dark. Thanks for making me

[@hpclabsttn926]

Thank you Emilio, It was very helpful.
I have a question, is it true if we want to backup a VM, we just download vmdk and vmx files only?

[@hitmanLis]

Exactly what I needed. Just enough details and perfect pace!

[@s2003katalin]

Or use VMware converter. Easiest way and free!

[@michaelcooper5490]

So how about copy the disk to NFS or iSCSI, would it work like that as well?

[@ulrichlamb8420]

Thanks for the video and good explanation. However I am wondering why you only copied across the .vmdk files and not the entire vm folder including the entire vm. Using the vSphere Standalone Converter you can do the same and resize WIN hard disk at the same time and switch thick to thin provisioning as you like. What you explain works but as always there are other possible paths one can take. Keep the good work up.

[@LibertyX82]

I have done it exactly like in the video but the new VM isn't booting.

[@ForeIndication]

Nicely done, thank you.

[@fwoodman]

How to clone if I already started creating snapshots and wanted to pick the latest snapshot?

[@drbob777]

What about snapshots that you could have made?

[@thuytruongluu3669]

Copy Virtual Disk
Description
Copy the disk, either a datastore path or a URL referring to the virtual disk
Datastore:
[datastore1] abc/abc.vmdk
State
Failed - Unable to access file [datastore1]abc/abc.vmdk since it is locked
Errors
Please help me!

[@baalamuruganvelayutham3047]

Facing the same issue, did you get it resolved?

[@testntestl5947]

Thanks Emilio for your video. I tried your way. However, it did not work for me. The copied disk file in the new folder did not appear in the folder when I browser it to add existing disk, where I got stuck. on ESXi 6.5.

[@ayodelegilbert8860]

You need to copy the vmk descriptor file with the vmdk. The file is like 7kb and it has the vmdk extension.

[@shanebagel]

Bloody goddamn legend mate

[@TechWithEmilio]

thansk heaps

[@mitchellsmith4601]

Nope, total failure. The new vmdk file doesn't appear when browsing for it to add it as an existing drive in ESXi 6.5.

[@TechWithEmilio]

hey, thanks for your comment. The vmdk files are browsable across current versions of ESXi, including 6.5. What do you see when you browse the datastore?

[@taniksambo1969]

are you saying a paid esxi version will have cloning?

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment and question...technically not the same cloning method as what is found on vCenter, within ESXi it is simply a workaround method.

[@surfandonanuvem4279]

IF the vmdk has 10 snapshots, how can I do it ?

[@bhavyaarora7165]

Simple and effective explanation, great job @Emilio Aguero.

[@TechWithEmilio]

Glad you liked it!

[@yusufcet]

Thank you Sir !

[@TechWithEmilio]

Glad you found it helpful! Thanks for watching.

[@nikolailiev3546]

maybe create the VM first before transfering the disk;

[@Ickythekid]

Great tip! Thank you!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it helpful!

[@mmmubeen3878]

Thanks for very good short cut.

[@TechWithEmilio]

You're welcome

[@serverpi]

Nice Tutorial!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks!

[@johnnyle8518]

Very nice, thanks!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thank you too!

[@douggray169]

Well done

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks, really appreciate your comment!
Feel free to check out my channel for some other great tech videos that you may find helpful. ruclips.net/user/digitalbytecomputing

[@joobinpirzadeh7939]

loads of thanks, it was useful.

[@TechWithEmilio]

You're welcome!

[@zathurian]

I'm unable to use this. My ESXI interface does not seem to be allowing copy or download options. When I hit copy it creates a 559Byte file of what should be 29GB. Same thing when I download. VM was powered off while attempting this.

[@Manuel-dc7im]

i have the same bullshit

[@pavelpskov]

i'm too. Solution is enable ssh in ESXi and copy vmdk using WinSCP

[@jeffreyrknowles]

i found if you copy the whole folder it's in, instead of just the file, it will work right.

[@hengkaing2665]

nice, thanks

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks

[@dineshharmalkar4549]

Thank you........

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it helpful!

[@mclord1974]

Thank you ;)

[@TechWithEmilio]

You're welcome!

[@nisva786]

Nice

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, appreciate it!

[@Reeltinyphish]

Perfect! Worked great!

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it helpful!

[@newart88]

Thanks.

[@TechWithEmilio]

Thanks for your comment, appreciate it!

[@ThierryC2373]

This is not a proper Vmware cloning, more a copy of an existing VM. Title is misleading as the copied VM will share the same hostname and IP address as the source.

[@TechWithEmilio]

Hi Thierry, thanks for your comment. This is what a VM clone is. What are you trying to achieve? Happy to help.

[@jefftee448]

@@TechWithEmilio I know right? There really is no difference. Copy and clone essentially have the same meaning

[@foxfire1112]

Hostname and IP is dependent on the VM, so yes of course. Sysprep the VM if you're using windows if you want to do this

[@parahumanoid]

This is such a bullshit "issue" to bring up. It's a non-issue at all. You can set all of that on your first boot. It really shouldn't be the hypervisor's burden to edit the contents of the vmdk anyway, even if it is not content-agnostic. Theoretically, the internal structure of partitions on the virtual disk could be damaged by a virus and require careful restoration. No automatic operations should be applied outside the admin control in such a scenario. The virtualization dev team has enough on their hands. Consider this an image copy between identical machines: all you need to do, you can do in minutes, otherwise you have no business being a systems administrator.