Changing all data drives and resuming operation, specifically FreePBX

[kurtisonxp]

Hi All,
I have a Dell Poweredge 2950 running ESXi 6.5.0 that I need to upgrade from 4x 300gb drives & 2x 146gb running as a single raid5 (I know, I'm just starting with raid),  to 4x2tb drives and 2x400gb drives running as a raid5 & raid1.

I know it's possible to copy the VM files off to a NFS Data store, and then copy back to the new drives, but will this change the hardware UUID that FreePBX uses to register paid modules? and should I be able to just re-register all of the vm's and have them work straight away? Same hardware, just different storage.

Any advice or experience would be appreciated.

Edit: RAID & disk layout clarity

[continuum]

Copying the complete directories to NFS - change storage-config - reupload will work if:
- you doublecheck that the original vmx file will not be changed along the way
- you do not start the VM on the NFS
- you answer the question: did you move or copy the VM with "I moved it"
- you do NOT start the VM if you did not see the question from step 3
For troubleshooting make backup copies of the vmx-file, log-files and vmdk-descriptor-files BEFORE you move the VMs to the NFS.
I highly recommend NOT to attempt any configuration changes of an existing Raid 5 - array !!!

And by the way .... I dont regard ANY Raid 5 array as a good choice for a VMFS-volume.
Do not consider Raid 5 without also having a solid power-supply and regular backups.
If you really must use Raid 5 at the very least do NOT use thin provisioned vmdks but eager zeroed thick.
Ulli