ESXi upgrade via VUM on local datastore

[andvm]

Hi,

Inherited an ESXi which is still on 6.0U1 and will upgrade to 6.7U3 via VUM (It is a supported Gen9 model)

What am trying to understand is where exactly the ESXi has been installed as it has only 1 local datastore (Storage Controller uses RAID).

I believe that ESXi creates its own partition/s, but can these co-exist with VM's?

Just trying to understand the partition structure (datastore is VMFS5) as when I browse through its files I do not see the ESXi partitions.

Also to make sure when I upgrade via VUM that it will only touch the ESXi install and nothing else?

Thanks

[jburen]

It could be that the local RAID volume is partially used for ESXi and the rest for a VMFS datastore. Not an ideal solution but technically possible. If you have VUM you can create a baseline and attach it to the host. Then remediate to upgrade the host. The datastore won't be affected by the upgrade.

[andvm]

yes sounds like it, is such a setup officially supported?

I should still point the scratch logs to a dedicated scratch partition on the local datastore right?

Guess the other option would be to install a supported SD Card/USB Drive but that would require an ESXi reinstall.

Thanks

[daphnissov]

If you're going to go the route of local storage backed by a RAID controller on which ESXi is installed and your VMs, you better make very, very sure that:

1. You have regular backups of all VMs
2. You have regular backups of ESXi host configuration

Problems with local storage is one of the top five issues people come running here for help.

[andvm]

ok am storage migrating VM's to another host on its local datastore to be on the safe side

I took a backup of the ESXi config (configBundle-hostname) in case something goes wrong with the install and I need to revert back to the old ESXi version

Thanks

[andvm]

Cannot execute upgrade script on Host. (When I tried ESXi upgrade via VUM)

Looks like I must have hit this VMware Knowledge Base

Does it mean that I first have to upgrade to 6.7U2 and then upgrade again to 6.7U3 if so?

Anything else to check in case it is unrelated?

Might try an interactive install

[andvm]

Interactive install worked

[peetz]

Greetings,

you are correct, when you install ESXi on a local hard disk / RAID volume it will create a number of small partitions at the start of the disk for the ESXi install and will use the remainder of the disk for a VMFS datastore partition.

However, of course you won't be able to see these partitions when browing the VMFS datastore. Look at the disk device in the vCenter Web Client (or the host's embedded HTML5 client) to find a detailed list of the disk partitions.

Other options that are typically used to install ESXi are USB key drives or SD cards.

- Andreas

[andvm]

looks like the 6.7U3 upgrade took care of creating a scratch partition of 4GB where scratch files are pointed...so no action seems to be needed for this

[microlytix]

Maybe your host has a flash medium that holds ESXi installation.

Watch out for a USB stick (internal/external) too.

Sometimes USB media was used for setup - although not recommended.