So far I've been unable to upgrade on my test machine, a Dell PowerEdge SC440. ESXi Update 2 installed just fine and works great (other than the fact that Ubuntu 8.10 guests are iffy), but ESXi Update 3 just stops with "Installation operation Failed!". It says it's unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to - even though Update 2 exists and boots fine if I take the install CD out.

Lost my two local SATA VMFSs - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1094410

You don't actually want to use the CD to upgrade to update 3. The only options for the CD are a repair or new install. For ESXi standalone, you can use one of these methods to update your host - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Patch_3i_without_VC.html.

Upgraded my HP Proliant ML110 G5 fine with no problems via the VMWare Infrastructure Update utility today, took 10 minutes, maybe less to complete.

Updated ESX, restarted, restarted the VM's, installed the new VMWare Tools.

So far so good. No problems with datastores, VM's disappearing, just worked fine.

Chris.

I don't think you can load the patches or updates without putting the machine in maintenance mode. I've always put the server in maintenance mode because that's what the instructions said. Anyway, I built a ESX 3.5 U3 server from scratch and migrated VMs over from a ESXi 3.5 U2 server without any problems (Generic Linux 2.4 kernel machines and Vista 32-bit). I also upgraded a ESXi 3.5 U2 server to U3 without any issues (Ubuntu 8.04, generic Linux 2.4 kernel, and Server 2008). I know, not much rhyme or reason to the upgrades, it just wat I had in a test environment.

Updated via Infrastructure Update, No Issues.