Anyone know how to move from ESXi on USB stick to hard disk?

[hellraiser]

Slightly more complicated than the title sounds - I have a couple of dedicated single-host ESXi 4.1 machines with access to local storage only. These were initially configured to boot from an internal USB stick, thereby leaving the hard disks free for VM storage however I have had issues with the USB sticks used, and so want to move them back to a hard-disk based ESXi install. If I install ESXi onto the hard disk, it will format the VMFS and I will lose any VMs I have on there, so here's what I intend to do:-

1) Do a vicfg-cfgbackup of the existing host.

2) Temporarily upgrade the host to an Enterprise licence to allow storage vmotion

3) I have 3 local datastores available on this host, 1x 600GB RAID1 and 2x 2TB RAID 5. I have one VM on the 600GB RAID 1, so if I storage vmotion the VM on that to one of the other datastores, then in theory this datastore will be blank.

4) Install ESXi directly onto the 600GB RAID 1

Now, here's where it gets a little grey. On boot up, will it try to do anything to the other RAID 1 volumes there, such as format them even though they are already VMFSes? My plan is to restore the vicfg-cfgbackup I took earlier and then to manually add the VMs to the inventory, does anyone have a better way to achieve this?

Once this is done, I will then drop the licence to standard vSphere and all should be well?

Cheers

JD

[DSTAVERT]

What issues have you had with USB? I have been using USB for years without issue. There is so little disk activity that they should last for decades.

Did you create a scratch partition on a datastore?

If you must go to disk, once you have the volume empty Breake up the array and create a 5GB logical disk/logical LUN specifically for ESXi install. Create a second logical/disk/LUN for datastore.

[hellraiser]

I had lots of issues with USB sticks based primarily around patching - when attempting to reboot, it would lock up on the loading screen and just sit there doing nothing or panicking. I had assigned a scratch partition on local storage, but this seemed to make no difference.

Is there really a need to isolate the install partition?  Most of the time I just configure a single RAID and then use that as a combined datastore and ESXi boot store - after all, if it resides on a VMFS there's no real need to segregate it surely?

Cheers

JD

[DSTAVERT]

ESXi uses FAT partitions. VMFS is strictly datastores. If you install without creating a logical drive for ESXi and you need to reinstall you risk loosing the datastore if the install goes badly.

[DSTAVERT]

By having a separate logical disk for the ESXi install it also makes expanding the array possible without issue.

[hellraiser]

I guess that makes sense. Most of the servers we run are on shared storage, so it's not really an issue - install ESXi onto the local hard disk and as nothing else will be on there, it doesn't matter. I take it you can't see anything wrong about my svmotion plan?

Cheers

JD

[DSTAVERT]

If the install is beyond 60 days then you won't be able to go back to the Enterprise Plus trial but otherwise it should be OK. Make sure you have good backups just in case. I like to pull or disconnect anything with good data when I install just so there isn't a possibility of accidentally choosing the wrong destination. Even though there won't be anything else on the drive I would still create the logical drive/LUN. You never know what you might do tomorrow.

[hellraiser]

That’s fine, I have a couple of spare enterprise licences on the vCenter, the plan is to temporarily promote this to enterprise and then to demote it once I’ve done. Perhaps not strictly complying with the EULA, but at a pinch it should work ☺

JD

[DSTAVERT]

Good luck. Keep the thread updated with your progress.

Thanks

[jbsherry]

If you're able to update the thread with your results, that would be great!

I'm looking to do something similar, though on a smaller scale and with fewer resources.

Thanks,

-jb

[hellraiser]

Well, stage 1 is completed - temporarily assigned the host an Enterprise licence this morning to enable storage vMotion, and shifted the SQL database that was on the primary RAID 1 onto the RAID 5 storage - performance shouldn't be an issue as this is a very low usage database, and the RAID 5 is on a trio of 15K SAS drives, so more than up to the task. svMotion went without a hitch, and the RAID 1 is now free and clear and so have dropped it back to a standard licence without issue. Need to RFC the reinstall, will post back on how it goes....

JD