Reconfigure RAID array on single physical ESXi 5.1 host

[kyiin]

Hello all:

Let's say I have a physical host running ESXi 5.1 that I just recently took over management of.

(The hypervisor runs off a USB flash drive and is completely separate from any RAID arrays.)

Let's also say I have four virtual machines running off one large RAID-5 array.

I would like to reconfigure the single RAID-5 array to give two virtual machines their own separate RAID-1 arrays while the remaining two virtual machines share a smaller RAID-5 array.

(Let's say that I have ensured sufficient drive space for the virtual machines after reconfiguration.)

How would I go about performing the reconfiguration in the simplest and most efficient way?

I am considering connecting an external USB hard disk and copying the virtual machine files from the large RAID-5 array to the USB hard disk, breaking the RAID-5 array and creating the new RAID-5 and RAID-1 arrays using the manufacturer boot utility, and then copying the virtual machine files back to the appropriate arrays.

Would this work?  Is there a better way to do this?

If this will work, is there VMware documentation on what steps to follow to ensure a smooth procedure while minimizing potential pitfalls?

     (E.g. How do I get the hypervisor to "see" the new RAID-5 and RAID-1 arrays?  How do I add the virtual machines back to the hypervisor?  Can I use the vSphere Client to do so?)

I would be very appreciative if you could assist me with these questions!

[brunofernandez1]

the fastest way is to export all the virtual machines with the vsphere client (export OVA) by connecting to the esxi server.

then rebuild you RAID with you new configuration, create your datastores and then import the virtual machines...that's it.

if you have a vcenter installed you could also do storage vmotion to another local datastore if you have still free disks to build another datastore...

[CoolRam]

As you are keeping the esxi in the USB drive so nothing will intact. But I am assuming that you have configured you have configured scratch somewhere. Let's consider that you configured in local drive or San lun. If datawise nothing is changing then these two nothing go a happen to your envurnomemnt.

You are moving from raid 5 to raid 1 then please make sure your datastore files are doesn't affect

For my suggestion I would suggest perform this in our local datastore with dummy VM  if thats work fine you can go ahead with upgrade