upgrade ESX3.5 to vSphere VMFS

[MaartenK]

Hello,

We are planning a migration of a single ESX3.5 server with shared SAN storage to a new vSphere 4 (ESX4 further on) environment with 2x an ESX 4 servers and vCenter.

To migrate the VMs we going to install the new ESX4 and want to attach the shared SAN storage to the new ESX 4 server. After that we want to migrate al VMs to the new server and reinstall the old ESX3.5 with ESX4.

Is the ESX3.5 VMFS3 file system (on the shared storage that was created by ESX3.5) still compatible with ESX4? Or does it need an upgrade too?

I hope I`m clear enough with this.

Regards,

Maarten

[AndreTheGiant]

VMFS is compatible.

And also VM in ESX 3.x (virtual hardware 4) format.

Andre

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

This compatibility is documented in kb 1005325.

Good Luck!

[depping]

It's compatible and it's not even possible to upgrade it to vSphere level VMFS. Only way would be svmotioning VMs to a new volume. But there really isn't a reason for doing this.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCP | VCDX

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[MaartenK]

Thanks for the replies the KB article was spot on!

Now there is nothing to stand in my way of upgrading.

Regards.