ESXi installation resets on reboot

[Jeffix]

Okay this is a weird one. I am reconfiguring my ESXi 6.7.0 Update 2 (Build 13006603) host to run the OS on a small flash drive instead of a SATA hard drive so I can keep it separate from my datastore. All of my VMs are migrated and stored on a new hard drive. I then plug in a 64GB USB 3.0 drive and am able to install ESXi on it.

 

The problem is now that when I reboot the system, ESXi seems to reset to factory settings. All of my settings go away including my VMWare license key, my created users, my VM registrations, and my management network settings. It reverts from Static to DHCP and resets the hostname and DNS configuration.

 

This problem never occurred when ESXi was installed on a SATA drive (which was running 6.7 [not Update 2]) but has consistently reverted all of these settings on reboot since migrating to the flash drive. Anyone else ever experience this? Am I better off using a smaller SATA drive to store ESXi on if it avoids this problem or is this an indication of something else?

[Jeffix]

Downgrading to the initial ESXi 6.7 release fixed this issue.