Best (easiest) way to replace HDD on ESXi 5.5

[Brian M. Veteran]

Hi All,

 

I have a HP N40L running ESXi 5.5, with a datastore containing OS drives on one HDD, and all my actual data on datastore on a separate array (which is connected via a P410). ESXi itself is booted from a USB stick.

The drive which handles OS/VMs is starting to die (there is an awful clicking noise coming from it) so I'd like to get this replaced before it dies completely. Problem is - I'm unsure of the easiest way of replacing this drive. Would the best bet be to export all VMs, then re-import them onto the new drive? Whilst ESXi will probably export the vmdk from the array, I guess I could just not re-import this, and just assign the old vmdk back to the virtual machine when it's re-imported?

 

Cheers

 

Edit: an easier way might be to move (temporarily) all VMs to my "data" datastore - would this cause any issues? 

[+BudMan MVC]

if you have enough space to move the the vms to your other datastore, this would be the easiest method.  Other than some extra io this should cause no issues at all.

 

So you going to replace with SSD?  That is what I would suggest.

 

Also curious why your not on 6?

[Brian M. Veteran]

5 hours ago, BudMan said:

if you have enough space to move the the vms to your other datastore, this would be the easiest method.  Other than some extra io this should cause no issues at all.

 

So you going to replace with SSD?  That is what I would suggest.

 

Also curious why your not on 6?

Cheers. I'll attack it over the christmas break then.

 

Yes, I'm going to take the opportunity to swap in an SSD. As for 6, I've just never gotten around to upgrading. Not sure if there's many new features that make it worth messing with (other than perhaps a much improved web client).