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defrogger
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Upgrade from 3.5 to 4

Hello, I have a client that is still on vmware 3.5 esxi.  They have standalone hosts with local storage.  We want to upgrade them to vmware 4, 5 if the hardware is compatible, i know 4 is compatible, will look up 5. 

Because the VM's are on  Local storage, im hoping that i can just shutdown the VM's, then boot off the install cd and just install vmware 4,

Problem is im not to familiar with 3.5.  Is it like vmware 4 were there is a separate partition from the datastore.  Meaning that it will ask what partition to install it on and i can choose the smaller one which is not the Datastore that has the VM's on it.

Also, im hoping that the standard partition size for 3.5 is large enough for Vmware 4. 

Im also assuming that Vmware 4 will see the Datastore from 3.5 and let me reimport the VM's, is that correct or is there more to it.

Has anyone done this?

Basically I want to avoid having to copy off the VM's from the storage. 

Thanks

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defrogger
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So we had a spare server and tested today.  Installed esxi 3.5 on a server.  Created a couple dummy VMs.  Then used the Esxi 5.1 installable cd, to boot the server off of.  Was able to install 5.1 with no problem as a fresh install, had plenty of space, and it saw the 3.5 datastore fine.

So we are going to proceed with doing the same for the client

Thanks

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rcporto
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Do you have vCenter Server and Update Manager in your environment ? Anyway, take a look here: VMware KB: Upgrading ESX/ESXi 3.5 or 4.0 to ESX/ESXi 4.1

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Richardson Porto
Senior Infrastructure Specialist
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/richardsonporto
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defrogger
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Nope no vcenter, these are standalone hosts.  What i was hoping i can do is just install esxi 4 from scratch, but im hoping that there is enough space on the 3.5 os partition and im hoping vmware 4 will have no problem seeing the local datastores from 3.5

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defrogger
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Has anyone done something like this.  To be clear, my idea is to get Esxi 4 instalable cd.  Boot the server off the CD, I want to install vmware esxi 4 from scratch.


What im hoping is that i can just choose the partition esxi 3.5 was installed on, overwrite it, and install version 4.  Then once it boots up, im hoping version 4 will see the local vmfs datastore that was already there, then i can just import the VM's.

My concerns is, it there enough space on the 3.5 partition, ive been googling, from what it looks like the default partition size for 3.5 is the same 4, so im assuming is should be good size wise. 

Thanks for any input

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TomHowarth
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Are these hosts ESXi3.5 or ESX3.5? Big difference  as the previous poster stated read the documentation on upgrading from 3.5 to 4

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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defrogger
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They are ESXi 3.5

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defrogger
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So we had a spare server and tested today.  Installed esxi 3.5 on a server.  Created a couple dummy VMs.  Then used the Esxi 5.1 installable cd, to boot the server off of.  Was able to install 5.1 with no problem as a fresh install, had plenty of space, and it saw the 3.5 datastore fine.

So we are going to proceed with doing the same for the client

Thanks

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