Upgrade ESX 4 to ESX 5 (Without losing existing local VMs)

[Goldtipu]

Hello Team

I have one ESX 4 host i want to upgrade and i have 7 Vms running on that server locally . is ther any posibility i can upgrade ESX 4 to 5 without lossing VM's ?

or do i have to move ? I will move to our storage if there is no such option .

Kind Regards

[Dave_Mishchenko]

With vSphere (ESXi) 5 you can perform an upgrade from either ESXi or ESXi.  Take a look at the upgrade guide - http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc_50/GUID-18B7B4BB-C....

[Virtualinfra · Accepted solution]

There wont be any impact on the VMFS Datastore where you have stored your VM's in the local Harddisk. you will be 3 option when you try to upgrade the ESX server to ESXI 5.0 they are

1. Migrate ESX, preserve VMFS

2. Install ESXi, preserver VMFS

3.Install ESXI, overwrite VMFS

refer the below screen shot.

But personally recommed you to migrate the VM out to other datastore it helps us in 2 ways.

1. Security of not taking any risk incase server crahes

2. Allow to use the feature of VMFS 5.0 by upgrading the VMFS datastore to new verison VMFS5

[Goldtipu]

Thank you

Today we followed the instructions and we are up and running witthout losing data all vm's are available .

Many Kind Regards