I built an ESXi instance on an 8GB Raspberry Pi using a 256Gb USB stick (plugged directly into the USB 3.0 port on the Pi). I did a SHIFT+O at boot and enabled AutoPartition. It automatically created a 100+ GB partition for the OS, and a 100+ GB partition for the datastore. When it first boots up, I am able to see the space in the datastore. But, as soon as I try to create a new VM, or upload an ISO to the datastore, it fails, and the space available in the datastore goes to 0 bytes. I am still able to operate in the console, so I assume the USB is still accessible. I've tried re-scanning and rebooting the PI, but it does not make the USB datastore accessible again.
Does anyone know what's causing this? I'd like to be able to use the remaining space on the USB stick.
FYI, I was able to mount an iSCSI LUN from my Synology NAS and created another datastore on that.
[root@localhost:~] esxcli storage filesystem list
Mount Point Volume Name UUID Mounted Type Size Free
------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------- ------- ------ ------------ ------------
/vmfs/volumes/5f9ecb26-4464890c-f7af-dca632c425e1 datastore2 5f9ecb26-4464890c-f7af-dca632c425e1 true VMFS-6 107105746944 104672002048
/vmfs/volumes/5f4e58ba-f54b7c92-e768-dca632c425e1 OSDATA-5f4e58ba-f54b7c92-e768-dca632c425e1 5f4e58ba-f54b7c92-e768-dca632c425e1 true VMFS-L 0 0