Upgrade of VMWare ESX from 3.5 to 4.1

[CEZIDO]

In the vSphere Upgrade Guide (ESX4.1) at page 22, I found out the table "Upgrading vCenter Server Componens" with the following row:

ESX VMDK3 virtual disk Not supported with vCenter Server 4.1

What this mean? I cannot run VM created in 3.5 on 4.1?

What is the new format? WMDK4?

What is the procedure to convert to the new VMDK?

Thank you in advance

[ChuckNeville]

You can upgrade without upgrading the VMDK, it stays the same. You need to go to 4.0 U1 first and then to 4.1 from what I have found. Use the VUM to get to 4.0 U1 and then use the command line or vCLI to go to 4.1. You will need to get your VC upgraded to 64-bit before going to 4.1. I have completed about 10 upgrades now and everything went very well.

[CEZIDO]

This mean that the VMs with the VMDK created in 3.5 is compatible on 4.1.

But, what is the meaning of the statement in the Upgrade Guide?

[ChuckNeville]

Yes VM's created and running on 3.5 will work fine. After everyting is upgraded, you will need to upgrade the VMware tools and then virtual hardware to version 7 to take advantage of all the new features.

I am sorry, but I am looking at the latest guide and I do not see the statement. Maybe I am overlooking it.

The best way to test, as I did, is to vmotion everything off one ESX, do the upgrade, and vmotion a VM back and test it. You can run 3.5 VM's on 4.0 and 4.1 without upgrading tools and virtual hardware to test. Once you upgrade the virtual hardware, you can only run the VM on 4.x.

[mark_chuman]

EN-000310-00

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf

Page 22

Table 3 -1

VMDK3 virtual disk Not supported with vCenter Server 4.1

Also curious about this statement. Have not loaded 4.1 yet. Can anyone explain this upgrade component?