Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3
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With ESXi 7.0 U3 SD cards/USB keys no longer recommended due to filesystem changes, I am wondering if anyone has other options than what I came up with.
Dell R440 with ESXi 6.7U3 and 16GB SD cards in RAID 1
Single CPU
Two 3.84TB RI SSD's in RAID 1 (Slot 0 and 1) on PERC H740P
Backplane has 10 2.5" drive slots (was on sale at Xbyte and cheaper than other options at the time)
Intel X710 SFP+ NICWill be upgrading soon to 7.0 U3 (waiting on Veeam) and plan to stop using the SD cards so the two options I can see are:
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Purchase two Dell 120 or 240 GB SSD and make a separate RAID1 for OS install. Plop the two drives in slot 8 and 9, make RAID 1 and reload ESXI. I can then keep the data where it is.
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Make multiple backups and export templates, Reconfigure current RAID and create two virtual drives, one being 80Gb and second being rest of the disk space.
I am leaning towards 1 as it will cost more in hardware but less in time. Option two is no extra hardware but a lot more time.
Any other thoughts?
Oh also, the BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU and the Intel NIC is in the PCI slot.
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I think you listed the options and reasons. Now it is up to you how the time compares to the money in your situation.
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@scottalanmiller said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
I think you listed the options and reasons. Now it is up to you how the time compares to the money in your situation.
Appreciate it. I kind of figured as the options are rather limited in this situation.
Using their workarounds to keep the SD Cards seems rather useless along with increased risk of future downtime IMHO.
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@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@scottalanmiller said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
I think you listed the options and reasons. Now it is up to you how the time compares to the money in your situation.
Appreciate it. I kind of figured as the options are rather limited in this situation.
Using their workarounds to keep the SD Cards seems rather useless along with increased risk of future downtime IMHO.
Time to move to KVM
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@pmoncho I use the boss card with dual nvme in raid 1 on all my new Dell servers.
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@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
use the boss card with dual nvme in raid 1 on all my new Dell servers.
That is the plan for all new systems now after discovering the debacle I am found myself in the last month or so. Just wish I was prescient two years ago.
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@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
Oh also, the BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU and the Intel NIC is in the PCI slot.
I don't know the first thing about BOSS cards - what is it? and what does single CPU and a NIC in the PCI slot have to do with anything - unless that somehow implies that there is only one PCI slot and it's in use and BOSS is only PCI?
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@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU
What does the single CPU have to do with it?
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@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU
What does the single CPU have to do with it?
Having only one CPU in a R440 does not power on
Slot IISlot III on the motherboard. Therefore, there is no slot to put a BOSS card in.Hmmm... now you have me thinking. Heading to look at the specs again to see exactly where the SD card is located.
*Edit - Changed Slot II to Slot III
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@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
Oh also, the BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU and the Intel NIC is in the PCI slot.
I don't know the first thing about BOSS cards - what is it? and what does single CPU and a NIC in the PCI slot have to do with anything - unless that somehow implies that there is only one PCI slot and it's in use and BOSS is only PCI?
BOSS (Boot Optimized Storage System) Cards connect to PCI slot in the mother board. It holds two M.2 drives for a RAID 1 configuration to load the OS.
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@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
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@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid array -
@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
BOSS card is out as it is a single CPU
What does the single CPU have to do with it?
Having only one CPU in a R440 does not power on
Slot IISlot III on the motherboard. Therefore, there is no slot to put a BOSS card in.Hmmm... now you have me thinking. Heading to look at the specs again to see exactly where the SD card is located.
*Edit - Changed Slot II to Slot III
The SD cards have their own slot. Bummer. No replacing it with the BOSS card.
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@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
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@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
A BOSS card is just a PCIe to dual M.2 converter, lots of them available at not much cost. I have no idea how much BOSS cards sell for.
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@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
BOSS card is just a card, it uses standard NVMe drives. So you are looking at $100 in drives retail for a pair of 250GB drives.
They don't have the issues of SD or USB with wear, thus removing an entire fail domain.If you have a Dell server with SD boot, then you already had a BOSS card, so there is no difference in the expense.
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@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
BOSS card is just a card, it uses standard NVMe drives. So you are looking at $100 in drives retail for a pair of 250GB drives.
They don't have the issues of SD or USB with wear, thus removing an entire fail domain.If you have a Dell server with SD boot, then you already had a BOSS card, so there is no difference in the expense.
OK - nice to know they are that reasonable... still tons more expensive than USB, but a ton safer too.
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@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
BOSS card is just a card, it uses standard NVMe drives. So you are looking at $100 in drives retail for a pair of 250GB drives.
They don't have the issues of SD or USB with wear, thus removing an entire fail domain.If you have a Dell server with SD boot, then you already had a BOSS card, so there is no difference in the expense.
OK - nice to know they are that reasonable... still tons more expensive than USB, but a ton safer too.
No one boots current hardware to USB. No one. It was only a thing for a couple years in fact.
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@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@jaredbusch said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@dashrender said in Server upgrade advice for upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U3:
@pmoncho That seems like a complete overspend for the need. Although there might not be a better way
No, it keeps the boot off the data raid array.
You can do the same with something straight on the sata bus, but a minor expense gives you a dedicated boot raid arrayI agree you want the boot/hypervisor not on the main array... but I'm assuming these BOSS setups aren't cheap.. definitely no where near as cheep as a USB stick or SD Card. Likely 100's of time more, if not 1000's more. that's all I am getting at.
BOSS card is just a card, it uses standard NVMe drives. So you are looking at $100 in drives retail for a pair of 250GB drives.
They don't have the issues of SD or USB with wear, thus removing an entire fail domain.If you have a Dell server with SD boot, then you already had a BOSS card, so there is no difference in the expense.
OK - nice to know they are that reasonable... still tons more expensive than USB, but a ton safer too.
No one boots current hardware to USB. No one. It was only a thing for a couple years in fact.
/sigh - yes Jared, I'm aware of the change.
