Can I move/copy an ESX host server on the free version

[xkaliburx007]

Afternoon all,

I don't have all the details as I didn't set things up but will be visiting my datacenter later next week.  We have an ESXi server (free) with 1 windows host.  That machine is quite old and I wanted to simply bring over some new hardware and move it.  From some initial discussions they say I can use a V2V converter or something like that so the questions are;

1.  Is that the best/preferred way to take a running windows server and move it to new hardware?

2.  Is it part of the free version?

That I think will be enough to let me order some hardware, as I know there used to be a CPU limit, RAM etc.  The machine its on is a single CPU, 12G of ram so nothing amazing, I just wanted to put a new quadcore CPU, probably 24 maybe 32G of RAM and all SSD's.  I just dont want to get to a point where I need to spend $1K on a license to just keep the existing 1 windows machine.

Thanks.  I am sure there will be a few others as this project gets started.

Thanks

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

There are some options to move VMs from one host to another. One - as you already mentioned - is to use the free VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, which is probably the easiest option. Another way to migrate the VM could be to export the VM as an OVF/OVA and import it on the new host. Last but not lease, you could manually download the VM's files from the ESXi host's datastore (using e.g. WinSCP) and upload the file to the new host.

Just make sure your hardware is supported for the ESXi version you are going to use to avoid frustration.

André

[xkaliburx007]

Thanks.  My friend was saying there are ways to do the full. then sync the changes, etc. but I don't even need that as I can keep things offline while that takes place.  I want to get away as easy as I can so will confirm that the hardware is supported.

Thanks