https://www.techtarget.com/searchvmware/tip/Useful-PowerCLI-cmdlets-for-managing-hard-disks
With PowerCLI, admins can manage and automate many different facets of vSphere. Just a few cmdlets enable VMware admins to create, modify, move and remove disks.
The advantage VMware provides with PowerCLI is the ability to automate complex tasks without spending time in a GUI. But, before admins incorporate PowerCLI into their arsenal of tools, they must understand the different cmdlets that are used for this automation.
Admins can use a number of methods to display information regarding vSphere hard disks, but the Get-HardDisk cmdlet provides insightful data, such as datastore, capacity, connection state and location.
To view all attached hard disks for a particular VM, an admin can use the following commands:
PS /Users/dan/ > Get-HardDisk -VM Test-VM | Select-Object Name,StorageFormat,Persistence,Filename,CapacityGB
Name : Hard disk 1
StorageFormat : Thin
Persistence : Persistent
Filename : [Test-1] Test-VM_1/Test-VM_3.vmdk
CapacityGB : 110
Name : Hard disk 2
StorageFormat : Thin
Persistence : Persistent
Filename : [Test-1] Test-VM_1/Test-VM_1_1.vmdk
CapacityGB : 1843
Admins can pipe the output to Select-Object, which enables them to see whatever property they wish to single out. Admins can also show disks for all VMs in a cluster by using the Get-Cluster cmdlet:
PS /Users/dan> Get-HardDisk -VM (Get-Cluster -Name 'Cluster' | Get-VM) | Select Parent,CapacityGB | Sort-Object -Property Parent
Parent CapacityGB
------ ----------
test 40
test-2 110
test-3 1843
test-4 380
test-5 1536
To create new hard disks from scratch, admins can use the New-HardDisk cmdlet. If admins want to create a new disk with 5 GB capacity on the VM Test-1, for example, they should also specify what datastore the disk should reside on, which is Test-1.
PS /Users/dan> New-HardDisk -VM Test-VM -CapacityGB 5 -DataStore Test-1
CapacityGB Persistence Filename
---------- ----------- --------
5.000 Persistent [Test-1] Test-VM_1/Test-VM.vmdk
To modify an existing hard disk, admins should use the cmdlet Set-HardDisk. This cmdlet enables admins to modify such factors as the datastore a disk resides on, a disk's capacity and whether to inflate or zero out a disk.
Admins can use Set-HardDisk to increase a disk's capacity to 10 GB, for example:
PS /Users/dan> Get-HardDisk -VM Test-VM -Name 'Hard disk 3' | Set-HardDisk -CapacityGB 10
Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Performing the operation "Setting CapacityGB: 10." on target "Hard disk 3".
[Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"): a
CapacityGB Persistence Filename
---------- ----------- --------
10.000 Persistent [Test-1] Test-VM_1/Test-VM.vmdk
These useful PowerCLI cmdlets enable admins to perform a storage VMotion migration to a separate datastore for a particular disk. Admins can also move many disks to different datastores at once. Admins can use the following command to move, for example, Hard disk 3 to the datastore Test-2:
PS /Users/dan> Get-HardDisk -VM Test-VM -Name 'Hard disk 3' | Move-HardDisk -Datastore 'Test-2'
Admins can even move all hard disks for a specified VM:
PS /Users/dan> Get-HardDisk -VM Test-VM | Move-HardDisk -Datastore 'Test-2'
When VMs stop being useful, admins might want to remove that data. Admins can remove hard disks by including the -DeletePermanently parameter when eliminating a VM with Remove-VM:
PS /Users/dan> Remove-VM -VM Test-VM -DeletePermanently
Admins can also use the Remove-HardDisk cmdlet. For example, an admin can remove all hard disks for the VM Test-VM:
Get-HardDisk -VM Test-VM | Remove-HardDisk25 Jun 2019