Uncertainties regarding SD/ USB boot device (Upgrade from 6.7 > 7.x)

[erki72]

VMware adjusted the KB article 85685

Quote: VMware will continue supporting USB/SD card as a boot device through the vSphere.Next 

Do I understand this in the right:
I have here a large amount of ESXI 6.7 hosts with USB / SD boot device
For the upgrade to ESXi 7.x I need disks or PCI card with NVMe.
As of vSphere Next, my USB sticks with SD card are supported again.

My specific question:
The upgrade is not possible without changing the boot device if I always want to be in the supported status?

[depping]

your USB device is supported both in 7.x as the major version coming after that. With 7.x and higher, we don't recommend using USB/SD though as described in the KB.

[alantz]

And not quite the only option, I converted all of mine from SDCards to boot from SAN.

--Alan--

[erki72]

Hi @alantz 

Can you please briefly describe what you mean by "converted"?
I'm still looking for an option without reinstallation (backup / restore)

thanks

[alantz]

By converted, yes, I mean I wrote myself a 30 page document on how to setup iSCSI in my environment and install XenServer fresh to the iSCSI LUN and get things configured properly. It wasn't magic, thats for sure.

--Alan--