Upgrading 4.x to 5.5

[amclean263]

This should be a easy question for somebody.  I have two HP hosts running Esxi 4.0 which I want to upgrade to 5.5 (hardware will not support 6).  Am I able to simply shutdown all the VMs and then boot to the HP customised ISO and upgrade without first moving the VMs to another host?  Will it recognise the existing VMs that are stored on both local storage and an iSCSI connected NAS?

[keshavkant]

Hi

Given link will be helpfull to upgrade your Esxi hosts.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=205835....

thanks and regards

keshav kant.

[RahulVmware1985]

Hey,

What I would suggest is to put server in maint mode first and perform a upgrade from update manager or ISO which ever way suits you.

[Himanshu_vmware]

I will advise to install the fresh esxi 5.5 on each host one by one. Because VMware does not recommend upgrading to vmfs5 rather install the new vmfs5.

Pick up the first host and migrate all the VMs to second host upgrade firmware on servers and then you can run the customize ISO for fresh install.

Then present new LUNs and migrate the shutdown VMs on this host. Test by powering on one VM first on new host and then rest.

Once one host gets updated successfully and VMs testing goes fine only then pickup the second host.

Same way upgrade the second host.

Please make sure to take screenshots of network and storage configuration.

Please mark the answer helpful or correct accordingly.

Thanks

Himanshu Gupta

[amclean263]

Thanks for the suggestion, while I would like to upgrade to VMFS5 I dont think that I can as I dont have the storage space to relocate the VMs that are on it and my upgrade window is tight (which is why its bound to have problem).  None of the connected storage is larger that 1.5Tb so I dont need the scalability advantages of VMFS5 so I might do as others have suggested and do an interactive upgrade from the CD.

[jagdish_rana]

Hi There,

Are you using vCenter or want to upgrade the existing esxi host to esxi5.5?

Waiting for your kind reply.

Thanks

[jagdish_rana]

Hi There,

There is no addition space require to upgrade the an existing vmfs 3 to VMFS5. All VM will work without any problem.

Thanks