Preserving datastore during ESX rebuild

[Query411]

As VMW has no migration solution between ESX 4.1 to ESXi 4.1, I am told that I will most likely need to reinstall.

My challenge following is if I rebuild, how can I preserve the local datastore?

Is it possible for me to rebuild ESX to ESXi 4.1, while preserving the local datastore?

[gekko]

I think there is an option to "maintain" the VMFS datastores when installing ESXi if that´s what you wanna keep.

- Kenth

[nkrishnan]

ESXi doesnt give any option to preserve the local VMFS, It do re-partitioning of the disk. You have to back up your localstorage data

Nithin

[idle-jam]

you will need to migrate the vmfs out, if simpler if you have vcenter server.

[a_p_]

One option would be to install ESXi on a bootable USB/SD instead of the disk.

If you are going to re-format the disk, I'd suggest - if applicable - to split the RAID into multiple logical disks. The first on with ~10GB on which you then install ESXi. The remaining disk space can be used for VMFS datastores. This way you can re-install ESXi in the future if necessary without the need to evacuate the datastores.

André

[Query411]

Thanks for all the responses so far.  However, I think further clarification is needed.

I have only one esx host, installed onto a single datastore.  Therefore, I don't have a 2nd host for migrating my VM into.  ALso, my datastore is 2 TB, so backing it up is not my first choice if I can prevent it.

Given the one host and local datastore, if I am to upgrade from ESX 4.1 to ESXi 4.1, the challenge remains as to how I can upgrade to ESXi while preserving the datastore, without having to wipe out or reformat my entire disk.

[a_p_]

In this case I think only the first option from my previous post remains.

One option would be to install ESXi on a bootable USB/SD instead of the disk.

It will be a new installation, however since it is on another volume than the VMFS datastore it'll work. Before you shut down your ESX, make note of the settings (e.g. virtual networking, ...).

André

[nkrishnan]

Hi,

If you are finding difficulty to coping data/VMs and you are not able to re-creatae RAID then try the following steps

1) connect another Harddrive or 4GB USB or more in size.

2)  disconnect Harddrives that has VMs/data or disable the controller (if you have 2  controller connect the new harddrive on another controller). This is for  the precaution, ESXi installation doesnt create VMFS on the Harddrive  that already have some partition, but installation clear the partition if we use it as boot disk.

3) install ESXi on USB or Harddrive

4) boot from new Booting source and make all the VMs part of the inventory

You have to try using ESXi4.1

Hope it helps

Thanks
Nithin