I have rewritten this question about the best method to move guests from a vCenter cluster to a standalone VM. I have four (4) guests 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, vm2, & vm3 all running ESXi 5.5 Enterprise and the standalone is vm4 running ESXi 5.1 (not licensed for vMotion). The vCenter, vm1, vm2, & vm3 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 have added the SAN DataStore Volume to vm4 that has the associated VMDKs. 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 (preferred) option I thought of is as follows. I have created the guests on vm4 with the use existing disk option, no VMDK file created. If I power them down and copy the VMDK files to the local storage then point to those copied VMDK files and power on, will everything work? Or could I just attach the VMDK files while still on the SAN and then power up and try to vmotion the data store to the local drive? Anyone have an easier or better option? Thanks in advance
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