I'm having some trouble to perform boot-from-iscsi and was thinking about a temporary workaround.
I want to install vSphere 5 on a USB-stick, boot from usb stick and when all problems with boot-from-iscsi are solved, use vMotion to migrate the VM's to the other ESX host.
What are the pros and cons regaring USB-install ?
Maybe this is even better than perform boot-from-iscsi.:smileycool:
Hi,
We dont have any difference between USB install and Install ESXi on Harddrive. all the features and functionalities are same. You have do following additional configuration on USB install if required
- Remote Syslog configuration
- Netdump configuration or change the coredump partition to harddisk by creating additional VMKcore on Harddrive.
- Try to use the qualified USB stick (refer the Hardware vendor documentation).
Are you looking for any specific limitation other than above mentioned.
Thanks
Nithin
more details: we are having these boot-from-iscsi problems with a Broadcom NetXtreme II 5709 NIC.
Hi,
We dont have any difference between USB install and Install ESXi on Harddrive. all the features and functionalities are same. You have do following additional configuration on USB install if required
- Remote Syslog configuration
- Netdump configuration or change the coredump partition to harddisk by creating additional VMKcore on Harddrive.
- Try to use the qualified USB stick (refer the Hardware vendor documentation).
Are you looking for any specific limitation other than above mentioned.
Thanks
Nithin
Not much difference ,
however USB- SSD made booting faster .
on USB embedded install I had to point the some log partitions on larger datastore .
USB works great . Its easier to rebuild in case of failover too
Hi tom,
there is no more difference.but need small change that is host registering a vCenter VM on it (unless you already know where you vCenter is) .
Ok... I want to boot from USB stick (externally connected).
Can someone point me to the list of qualified usb stick vendors for vSphere 5 ?
What is the make of your hardware ?
I've used sandisk SHDC memory card.
it's for a cisco usc c200 server, but needs to be usb2.
Try any good brand like sandisk , should be fine . Once esxi boots everything is played by RAM so its not a big deal .
Thanks
What size of USB stick should it be ? 8GB / 16GB ?
depends on the hardware vendors built , mine is a HP , ISO file is about 2 GB . however I bought 4 GB .
you might as well buy 4GB , should be fine , and also check how big your ISO will be ..
8GB or above should be sufficent to install ESXi and Hardware management software.
also we use kingstone or sandisk as external USB stick to test and found working fine
Great to hear this from all of you, thanks !!!
Is there a way to use a second usb stick in mirror ?
Or can we duplicate the contents of the usb stick somehow ?