Move VMs to new server

[djurden1]

My Dell R710 server is about to die. It is running version 6.5.0 Update 2 (Build 8294253). This is a stand alone server, not connected to vCenter or any other management services.

I am copying all the files for each VM off of the old server onto a network drive. 

When I get the new server, can I install version 7.1 and copy the files onto that server and get the VMs up and running or do I need to stick with 6.5?

[a_p_]

A few things that you need to be aware of, especially if you want to manually copy files.
Manually copying files will inflate thin provisioned virtual disks to their provisioned size.
vSphere 7 uses a different (incompatible) snapshot file format, so make sure your VM's don't have active snapshots (delta files).

Instead of simply copying the files/folders, consider to export the VM's as OVF/OVA. This will not only save disk space, and time, but will also allow you to import the VMs on the new host in a optimized way. Before starting the export, ensure that the VMs do not have active snapshots, and remove any .iso, or .flp images from the VMs' virtual CD-ROM/Floppy drives. Setting them to "Client Device" is likely the best option.

André

[djurden1]

I'm trying to export OVF format. The smallest VM exported fine. But I keep getting errors on the others. The message is "Couldn't download...network issue". I try to resume the download...but it won't. It keeps displaying the same message.

I don't have enough space on my host machine's drive. So I am trying to download them to a USB drive that has more than enough space.

[continuum]

Can you wait until the new server is available ?

Then you could copy from source-datastore-old-esxi directly to target-datastore-new-esxi. ...

[djurden1]

As long as this old one keeps running...

What is the process for copying from one server directly to another?

[continuum]

You create a Linux VM somewhere and from that you connect to bothesxi hosts via sshfs.

Then you can use ddrescue to transfer large files (all *-flat,vmdk *-delta.vmdk  and *-sesparse.vmdk )

For the small files you simple use cp.

Ulli