<div>
You could <br />
1- create a cluster<br />
2- move all vms to one host<br />
3- remove original host and install esxi on new disk<br />
4- add host to cluster and vmotion vms back
</div>


You could
1- create a cluster
2- move all vms to one host
3- remove original host and install esxi on new disk
4- add host to cluster and vmotion vms back

<div>
Not on an Essentials license. &nbsp;They don't let us play with the nice toys.<br />
<br />
--Ben
</div>


Not on an Essentials license.  They don't let us play with the nice toys.

--Ben

CTO, SAS developer

Ben Conner

<div>
That will be a PITA. But at least I know how to handle it.<br />
<br />
Thanks much!<br />
<br />
--Ben
</div>


That will be a PITA. But at least I know how to handle it.

Thanks much!

--Ben

<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Hi,<br />
<br />
I want to migrate my ESXi boot drive to an SSD drive (M.2 ssd). &nbsp;The article <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5n5vmi/is_there_a_way_to_clone_esxi_usb_to_hard_drive/" rel="ugc">here</a> discusses an approach to take but I'm not sure if it also captures the VM definitions that were defined on that host. &nbsp;Not the VMs themselves, but the metadata. &nbsp;If not, that isn't as useful to me.<br />
<br />
?<br />
<br />
Thanks!<br />
<br />
--Ben
</div>
</div>


Hi,

I want to migrate my ESXi boot drive to an SSD drive (M.2 ssd).  The article here (https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5n5vmi/is_there_a_way_to_clone_esxi_usb_to_hard_drive/) discusses an approach to take but I'm not sure if it also captures the VM definitions that were defined on that host.  Not the VMs themselves, but the metadata.  If not, that isn't as useful to me.

?

Thanks!

--Ben

Migrating the ESXi boot partition on a host to a new drive

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.

Virtualization

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.