Migrate Freenas from ESXi to ESXi

[Veedub]

Hi,

I could only find posts about migrating from bare-metal to ESXi not between ESXi hosts so I thought I would post my question.

I have an FNAS v11.1-U1 running on ESXi 6.5 using a LSI2008 controller passed-through to the VM. Four 4TB HDDs are connected to the LSI2008 using ZFS with the FNAS install mirrored as VMDKs on two separate SSDs used as native VMFS datastores on the ESXi host.

I want to migrate to new hardware also running ESXi 6.5 and want to migrate the FNAS install across and have it running the same as it currently is. I am uncertain how FNAS will deal with this transition however. My high level plan is:

- Backup data on FNAS
- Deregister VMs currently running on ESXi
- Backup and export ESXi configuration, i.e. networking, IP addressing etc.
- Migrate SSDs, controller and connected HDDs to new computer
- Install ESXi to USB on new computer and import ESXi configuration backup
- If not already done so through configuration import, configure the LSI2008 controller for pass-through
- Browse through SSD datastore and register FNAS VM
- Boot FNAS VM

Is there anything else I may need to consider before doing this?

Thanks

 

[kdragon75]

FNAS install mirrored as VMDKs on two separate SSDs used as native VMFS datastores on the ESXi host.

Overkill but if you have the space, hey why not!

I want to migrate to new hardware also running ESXi 6.5

1. EDIT: Shutdown the current system! (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!):D
2. Move boot USB drive over.
3. Move the disks and LSI 2008 over.
4. Press power button.
5. Drink beer.

This works because ESXi is not a full OS with hardware drivers that get installed when ESXi does. Its a standard image and a config "file" kind of like FreeNAS. Just like FreeNAS, just move your ot drive to the new system and as long as the drives are there, it should be fine. You MIGHT hit a wrinkle with mounting the VMFS datastores on the SSDs but I doubt it.;)