I have a question about the best method to move guests from a vCenter cluster to a standalone VM. I have four (4) guest I need to move off my vCenter cluster to a standalone VM host. My system is configured as follows: my vCenter consists of three (3) host vm1, vm 2, & vm3 all running ESXi 5.5 Enterprise and the standalone is vm4 running ESXi 5.1 (not licensed for vMotion). The vCenter, vm1, vm2, & vm4 use SAN storage for the Data Stores, and vm4 uses local storage only. The four (4) guests have provisioned storage of 27 GB, 44 GB, 44 GB , & 590 GB. I was going to remove vm3 from the vCenter and add vm4 then vMotion the guest to vm4 and local storage. But since vm4 is not licensed for vMotion I need a new strategy. I am looking for options and advice.
I thought of power them off then coping the guest folders from the SAN to a external hard drive then coping them from the external hard drive to the local storage on vm4. I am concerned about the time to copy the 590 GB folder twice as these are production guests. The other option I thought of is to create the guest on vm4 with the use existing disk option and point to the Date Store on the SAN, if I can get vm4 to see the SAN. Anyone have an easier or better option?
Thanks in advance