ESXi 4.0 (free version) to ESXi 4.1 (or 5?) upgrade

[ben9035]

I contacted licensing support who told me that I was using the free version, and that the update from 4 to 4.1 was not available.

He said that he thought it would be possible to download the 4.1 udpate 3 installable and that would work to upgrade.  Is this true?

I'm basically just trying to get USB passthrough functionality so my Backup Exec server will keep freaking out because I'm trying to backup across the network.

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

as of ESXi 5, VMware added an option to interactively upgrade a host using the installation CD (preserving the VMFS datastore). If your host is supported, I'd suggest you rather consider ESXi 5.x than 4.1.

André

[ben9035]

I am completely open to that.  Are there any risks I should be concerned with?  And, how does this option get presented?  Do I boot from installation cd and it sees the 4.0 installation?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Now there's always a small risk in changing a running system, so best bet is to ensure to have a proper backup.

Anyway, the ESXi 5 installation CD will discover the installed version and prompt you for what to do. Options are a upgrading the host or installing (with or without preserving the existing datastore).

André

PS: DON'T try this with the ESXi 4.1 installation CD. This will overwrite the installation disk!!!

[ben9035]

Sounds good.  I still can't believe one of the updates didn't incorporate USB mapping to VMs.  Thank you for the insight.

[ben9035]

Uhh, you forgot to mention the small facts that I would have to purchase 5.1, or that there was no roll back option, so now I have 58 days to come up with $500 for a license of essentials 😞

[a_p_]

No need to purchase a license. You just need to register for the free Hypervisor to get a license key for version 5.x.

http://www.vmware.com/go/download-vspherehypervisor

One exception though. The free license only supports up to 32GB physical memory!

André