Create VMDK disks that are larger than 4TB without the vSphere Web Client

If you are using the free version of the ESXI hypervisor you will not have access to the vSphere web client and unfortunately this comes at a disadvantage when performing certain tasks - for example creating virtual disks that are larger than 4TB in size.

Fortunately we can use the CLI (vim-cmd) to create the disk for us - we should firstly enable SSH on the host and then logon to the ESXI shell and grab the VM ID:

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

From the output we can identify the VM ID - we then issue the following command to create the disk on the specific VM:

vim-cmd vmsvc/device.diskadd 1 52428800 scsi0 2 datastore1

* where '1' is the ID number of the VM and '52428800' equals the disk size (in KB), 'scsi0' identifies the disk controller and '2' equals the port on the controller)