Update-VmfsDatastore VMFS5 datastore to VMFS6

[VPXA]

Hi All,

Please suggest me the paths to upgrade the datastores from VMFS 5.5 to VMFS 6 in 6.5 vSphere environment.

Our existing datastores are with 5.5.

Creating new VMFS6 datastores and moving the VM's, which will consume more time.

Kindly suggest me for any other easy methods in upgrading the same without moving the VM's or downtime! is this possible?

[diegodco31]

Hi

Check if the following VMware KB article helps:

VMware Knowledge Base

Automating Migration of VMFS-5 to VMFS-6 Datastores - VMware vSphere Blog

[continuum]

There is no way to update VMFS 5 to VMFS 6.
The differences are just too big.

[VPXA]

Thanks Diego,

Referring the same KB's.

[VPXA]

our Datastores are with 5.5, recently upgraded the vCenter to 6.5u1. So now planning for the datastores.

Online Documentation - Cmdlet Reference - VMware {code}

referring this too, but backup is a constrained.

[continuum]

All links to the documentation that appear in this post actually say the same thing: there is no way to update/upgrade VMFS 5 to VMFS 6

[sjesse]

This really doesn't update the vmfs5 ones

1. Backs up the VMFS5 (source) datastore, if the datastore contains any VMs or any other directories or files, to another VMFS5 datastore (temporary).

2. Deletes the source datastore, re-creates it with VMFS6 file system, and moves back all the files from temporary to source.

3. Rollback option: If there are infrastructure issues causing the ongoing task on step 1 to abort, use the Rollback option in the cmdlet to roll back all VMs and copied files from temporary to source.

4. If the Rollback option is not possible (due to being past step 1), you can resume the task which is initiated in step 1 by rectifying any infrastructure issues.

5. There is no post-update rollback option as the goal is to move all files from the VMFS5 datastore (temporary) to the newly formatted VMFS6 (source) datastore.

If moves everything to  a temporary data store and and reformats the current one, and moves it back. I'm not sure I'd trust this, we just manually created new datastores, then storage vmotioned each server over.

[VPXA]

Yup, the KB referring the same, creating new DS with VMFS6 and S.vMotion the VM's (from old datastore) new datastore (VMFS6) and reclaim the VMFS 5 Datastore.

what if we don't have the storage space? just wanted to know the paths, (incase of less storage).

[sjesse]

We had that concern, in that case I'd just make one at a time. If your storage system supports unmap, and you haven't tried reclaiming space before, you could try this

VMware Knowledge Base

this requires the storage to be thin provisioned though.

[diegodco31]

You will need creating new DS with VMFS6 and use svmotion.

If you don't have the storage space, you can do just make one at a time.

[tobyjosham]

As per the below article, the cmdlet Update-VmfsDatastore does this for you

Automating Migration of VMFS-5 to VMFS-6 Datastores - VMware vSphere Blog

Or it should however I can't get it to work as I get the below error

Update-VmfsDatastore : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Id'. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.

At line:7 char:1

+ Update-VmfsDatastore -Datastore $Source -TemporaryDatastore $Temp -Ta ...

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Update-VmfsDatastore], ParameterBindingValidationException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Update-VmfsDatastore

I've checked the variables and everything looks fine. The "Get-Datastore" gives the Id parameter so I don't know where this is going wrong.

[5mall5nail5]

VMFS 5 cannot be upgraded in-place to VMFS 6 today

[tobyjosham]

I know

The cmdlet moves the vms to a temp datastore, deletes the vmfs5 datastore then re-uses the LUN to recreate the datastore using vmfs6.

Only I can't get it to work as per the error shown above.