ESX 3.0.2 and 4.0 VMFS Compatability

[RHinder]

Hi,

I am about to upgrade a 3.0.2 environment up to 4.0 by upgrading VC, then fresh building some new 4.0 hosts. But before this happens we are rolling onto a new Storage Array and instead of recreating the VMFS partitions using 3.0.2 and it's version of VMFS I would like the newest version of VMFS that comes with ESX 4.My plan is temporarily build up an ESX 4 host, connect it to the new array and create the VMFS' from it.

My question is, will the ESX 3.0.2 hosts that are running my VMs have any issues with the new version of VMFS before I replace them? Also, will I be fine to vmotion between ESX 4 hosts and 3.0.2. I know between ESX 4 and 3.5 is fine from experience.

Any links to evidence would be great too.

Thanks

rMh

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

You will be fine. There is evidence available in kb 1005325.

Good Luck!

[RHinder]

awesome thanks. and the vmotioning should be fine too?

[vmroyale]

Yes. Just don't upgrade the virtual machine virtual hardware to v7 while you still have both versions of the hosts running and you will be fine. The VMotion compatibility and the virtual hardware warnings are both covered in the vSphere Upgrade Guide.