Reusing Disks from a Previous vSAN

 This post may be mostly relevant to home-lab builders, but if you have previously configured vSAN on the disks used in host, you may not be able to easily reuse them in a new vSAN.

Lets take a look at my specific use case.

I want to install vCenter 7 and I want to establish vSAN on the host during this process.

For this installation I am going to install on host ESX03 , I previously used the internal disks for a vSAN cluster, but I am upgrading from hybrid to all flash using a 1TB SSD that I recently acquired.

In the datastore part of the installer , I select "Install on a new vSAN cluster containing the target host"

This will create a standalone vSAN node, configuration of the cluster is completed later when additional hosts are added.

Once I get to the section to claim my disks, I can see that I only have one disk and it is the new 1TB disk. My existing 120GB drive does not appear.

On the host I can see that this 120GB disk does exist.

Selecting the disks shows me that there is an existing vSAN partition table. We need to clear this partition.

Select Actions -> Clear Partition Table

Note the warning, erasing this partition is destructive and will remove the data from the disk that is essential for the previous vSAN.

I know that I will not need that data, so I can proceed.

There are no partitions on the disk.

Refreshing the vCenter installer by going back and then forward again. I can now see my 120GB drive available to claim

I select my 1TB drive

and claim it for the capacity Tier. I can now proceed with the remainder of the vCenter deployment

Hope this helps someone 

Jason