Install Essentials on USB stick?

[Titans99]

Hi, I currently use ESXi 4.1 installed on USB sticks (no local drives in server), but will be upgrading to vSphere Essentials 5.0.  Now that version 5 is "all ESXi", can I install Essentials on a USB stick and still use vCenter or do I need to buy internal drives?  Is this config supported?  Thank you.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

With vSphere Essentials you can install to either disk (local or remote) or a local flash device .

[DSTAVERT]

ESXi 5 installs on USB just fine. You can do an upgrade on your 4.1 USB install to version 5.

[Titans99]

Later on if I wanted to upgrade from Essentials to Essentials Plus, could I still use the USB flash?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Yes - or to any other licensed edition.  For the most part you'll just have to update your license key (and if necessary perform further configuration to support new features).  You won't have to reinstall ESXi.

[Titans99]

Great, thanks for the speedy replies!

[DSTAVERT]

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.