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ESXi Upgrade Question

TubsAlwaysWins
By TubsAlwaysWins
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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Go to solution Solved by besterino,

That’s what I would / usually do. If you have the ESXi boot medium separated from VM-Storage, I‘d just install 6.7U3 from scratch on a fresh boot disk (USB), setup vswitches (identical naming) and import VMs. Usually that’s quickly done and in case you have any probs have your old setup untouched. 
 

If you are sure everything works, upgrade vms datastores and VM to actual version (after that there’s no going back).
 

Only part bit more cumbersome might be to setup PCIE-passthrough settings, as that normally needs to be configured again not only on the host, but also in each (imported) VM with passthroughed devices. 

Posted

I have a server on ESXi 5.1u1 that I would like to move to ESXi 6.7u3. 

Looking at my upgrade path on ESXi website, It looks like I have to go 5.1u1> 5.1u3 > 6.0u2 > 6.5u3 > ???

 

What I am curious to know is if I can just install ESXi 6.7u3 onto my server and then re-mount my datastores, and then re-build the VM from there. Sounds easier to just re-install and re-mount, rather than try to get it upgraded.

 

Any thoughts? 

Thanks

 

 

Breaking things 1 day at a time

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That’s what I would / usually do. If you have the ESXi boot medium separated from VM-Storage, I‘d just install 6.7U3 from scratch on a fresh boot disk (USB), setup vswitches (identical naming) and import VMs. Usually that’s quickly done and in case you have any probs have your old setup untouched. 
 

If you are sure everything works, upgrade vms datastores and VM to actual version (after that there’s no going back).
 

Only part bit more cumbersome might be to setup PCIE-passthrough settings, as that normally needs to be configured again not only on the host, but also in each (imported) VM with passthroughed devices. 

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Just out of curiosity, but is your hardware ESXi 6.7 capable? Most hardware that was around when ESXi 5.1 came out, is too old now. You need at least a Sandy Bridge EP Xeon for full support (E5-2400/2600 series). Can be done on X5600 series with a simple boot flag if that's your jam.

 

The reason behind upgrading to versions in between is probably VMFS related, as the VMFS versions from vSphere 5 aren't compatible with 6.7.

 

Overall, I'd agree with starting fresh if possible. Keep the 5.1 drive separate as a fallback.

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@besterino Good too know, I do not believe there are any super special passthrough devices or anything but will be sure to note them before the migration.

 

@NelizMastrGood catch, my R610s will only run 6.5. This is a R720 with the Xeon E5-2643. I was hoping for a clean install, just wasnt sure if I could or not. Ill let you know if I get any issues.

Thanksd

 

Breaking things 1 day at a time

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