Upgrade ESXi 4.0 host to 5.5

[rjsob]

I started out with the free ESXi 4.0 and have 6 VMs running on that host. I've finally got approval to purchase the Essentials bundle. I've setup a brand new host with 5.5. I want to upgrade my existing 4.0 host to 5.5. From what I've read, I can do an interactive install via CD on the existing 4.0 host and it will keep all my existing VMs on that host intact. SO:

  1) Is it really that simple?

  2) No chance of losing my VMs?

  3) Do I need to shut down those VMs first?

I can copy the VMs down to my local PC via the VSphere client just in case, but that will take too many hours of down time on those production VMs.

Can I use my new clean ESXi 5.5 host with the VCenter appliance and new web client to connect to the older 4.0 host and copy the VMs from the 4.0 box to the 5.5 box?

Thanks for any help you can provide this newbie.

[rcporto]

1) Is it really that simple?

Yes, just boot your physical server from new vSphere 5.5 installation media and the installer will detect a old  version intalled and ask you for upgrade or overwrite.

  2) No chance of losing my VMs?

Backup is always recommended 🙂

  3) Do I need to shut down those VMs first?

Yes, since you will need boot your physical server from vSphere 5.5 installation media,

Can I use my new clean ESXi 5.5 host with the VCenter appliance and new web client to connect to the older 4.0 host and copy the VMs from the 4.0 box to the 5.5 box?

This VMs are stored on local datastore or shared datastore ? If on datastore you can map the same LUN to both hosts and since you don't have vMotion license, just shutdown the VMs on 4.0 host and restart on 5.5 host.