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ngiengsk81
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Upgrade from ESXi 5.5 to 6.5 U1

Hi, we plan to upgrade the current ESXi 5.5 3b to 6.5 U1 as the 5.5 going to end for the support this month. Our current host is HP Proliant DL380P Gen 8 connected to the HP P2000 storage. After checked in the VMware compatibility guide, it shows that HP P2000 storage is not support for upgrade. Anyone here try to upgrade to 6.0 or 6.5 without issue before?

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TomHowarth
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The HPe P2000 is a very old array also it was even at its time a low end array with limited higher functions even for the time it was released, it has never been supported against ANY version 6.x vSphere release.  This is mainly due to it not passing the tests required to be supported and HPe making a conscious business decision not to remediate the errors that arose out of the verification testing.

From memory vSphere 6.0 rewrote the iSCSI drivers and introduced support for T10 SCSI calls (memory might be failing me) - it is this more than anything that should be making  you worried.

The fact is that this particular array entered HPe EoL lifecycle almost 4 years to the day (30th September 2014)  it has had no new firmware, no new features added.  YES you can with a lot of Google Fu find somebody who heard that is best mates 3rd cousin on his step dads uncles side of the family knew a person who got it working just fine.

but the array failed those tests, which resulted in it not gaining a supported statement from VMware.  Your STORAGE ARRAY is the repository of all your information.  Ask your self this do you want to be the person who is called into the board meeting of saying "don't worry it will work" and then betting your entire company on the flip of a heavily loaded dice that in NOT in your favour.

Personally I would not even trust this array for a test bed - let alone production work loads.

I would Strongly advise you to look at some of the newer AFA arrays that are currently on the market and get a new one.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410

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rajen450m
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Hi,

We had the same platform and upgraded to 6.5 and had some connectivity issues.

FC gets disconnected and whole chassis will get effected and find intermittent disconnections, then we have reverted back to 5.5 and bought new DELL hardware.

Running Hyper-V 2012R2 for non-prod on those servers now. Good Luck with upgrade and don't use any incompatible hardware.

For any step-by-step upgrade process, find below links:

How to Upgrade VMware vCenter Appliance (VCSA) 5.5 to 6.5.0 u1e – HyperVMwareCloud

How to upgrade ESXi 5.5 to 6.5.0 using Update Manager – HyperVMwareCloud

How to Deploy, Install and Configure vSphere Replication 6.5.1 – HyperVMwareCloud

Regards,

Raj M Please mark helpful or correct if my answer resolved your issue. Visit www.hypervmwarecloud.com for my blog posts, step-by-step procedures etc.,
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TomHowarth
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The HPe P2000 is a very old array also it was even at its time a low end array with limited higher functions even for the time it was released, it has never been supported against ANY version 6.x vSphere release.  This is mainly due to it not passing the tests required to be supported and HPe making a conscious business decision not to remediate the errors that arose out of the verification testing.

From memory vSphere 6.0 rewrote the iSCSI drivers and introduced support for T10 SCSI calls (memory might be failing me) - it is this more than anything that should be making  you worried.

The fact is that this particular array entered HPe EoL lifecycle almost 4 years to the day (30th September 2014)  it has had no new firmware, no new features added.  YES you can with a lot of Google Fu find somebody who heard that is best mates 3rd cousin on his step dads uncles side of the family knew a person who got it working just fine.

but the array failed those tests, which resulted in it not gaining a supported statement from VMware.  Your STORAGE ARRAY is the repository of all your information.  Ask your self this do you want to be the person who is called into the board meeting of saying "don't worry it will work" and then betting your entire company on the flip of a heavily loaded dice that in NOT in your favour.

Personally I would not even trust this array for a test bed - let alone production work loads.

I would Strongly advise you to look at some of the newer AFA arrays that are currently on the market and get a new one.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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ngiengsk81
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Thanks for the verification. Will convince the user to buy a new storage.

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ngiengsk81
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Hi,

Definitely will avoid to upgrade based on your experience to save my time to troubleshoot in the future. Thanks .

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