Converting Vsphere VMs to ESXi 4.0

[mkieffer]

I need to convert / place several VM images from a vSphere cluster to standalone ESXi 4.0 servers.

I have been using the vCenter Converter and some images are taking a really long time to convert (mostly likely caused by network...)

Is there a best way to do this?

Is there a fast way to do this?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thx!

[Troy_Clavell]

In my opinion the best way to do this would be what you are doing, and that is using VMware Converter. You may also look at FastSCP

..but as you said, if there is network contention, you are at the mercy of "it can only be as fast as your slowest link"

[AntonVZhbankov]

Since ESXi 4.0 is actually part of vSphere you don't need really convert VMs, just copy. Yes, you can do it with Converter and it's still the safest way, but nor really fast, I think.

As Troy said, Veeam FastSCP can be useful and maybe even a little bit faster, but do not await superspeeds. ESXi doesn't work really fast itself, especially when it comes to copy files via network.

---

MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

There is also another way.

If you have vCenter Server (you are talking about a vSphere cluster), you can put temporally the ESXi in evaluation, add to vCenter, and use the migrate function of vCenter.

Andre

[mkieffer]

Thanks all and Andre going to give your method a shot!