ESXi 7 - USB boot drive alternatives

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ARNiTECT

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Jan 14, 2020
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I recently read that it is the end of the road for USB boot drives for ESXi 7.
I was ready to upgrade my Homelab from 6.7 to 7.0 and I am now considering what to install ESXi on to.
I have passed through my onboard SATA controller to a storage VM (OmniOS), so I have no onboard ports available.
I could use a PCIe x1 Sata controller card, but instead I was thinking of using a USB-to-SATA adapter, to make use of the onboard USB socket and an old Sata-SSD drive.
Would this be ok?
 
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TRACKER

Active Member
Jan 14, 2019
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Not sure what exactly do you mean, but recently i've upgraded (also clean install) from 6.7u3 to 7.0.3 my 3 workstations.
No issues using USB boot drive (i use some kingston 32GB sticks)
 
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ARNiTECT

Member
Jan 14, 2020
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Perhaps I've misunderstood, but I came across this:

I've only had ESXi 7 installed a couple of weeks on a USB drive (SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB) and I have also not had any issues, apart from a warning I had not yet dealt with:
"No Coredump Target Has Been Configured."
...which is what lead me to KB

On my secondary server, where I haven't passed through the onboard SATA controller: I have just installed ESXi 7.0U2d to a 10 year old SSD (120Gb OCZ Vertex 3). The default install filled the remaining disk space with a VMFSL partition (~100GB). I have kept the previous USB boot drive just in case.

For my primary server, I have previously used USB-SATA adapters for ESXi datastores, but it was a lot of work to setup, and the USB arbitrator must be switched off. I am hoping that isn't required for the boot drive.
 
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Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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You missed the relevant parts;)

Starting from the next major vSphere release, SD cards/USB media as a standalone boot device will not be supported.
.
.
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Customer actions for future versions of ESXi (8.0 and beyond)
...
Click to expand...
 
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ARNiTECT

Member
Jan 14, 2020
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Probably too much skim; not enough reading :)
However, I got the impression the boot partitions are fine on a USB, but some new OSDATA partition, should be on a non-usb/sd card flash drive.
I was hoping to just upgrade and I wasn't expecting to have to consider whether installing ESXi to USB is an issue or not.
I thought if I'm upgrading, maybe it would be simpler to just install ESXi to an SSD.
It looks like I will now have to read in more detail...
 
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dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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I've used SATA DOM with success. I use SM MBs, so I opted for SM DOM, since the MBs I get have different colored (yellow) SATA ports that provide power automatically, so you don't need the plug any wires.
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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ARNiTECT said:
I was hoping to just upgrade and I wasn't expecting to have to consider whether installing ESXi to USB is an issue or not.
Click to expand...
No need to worry about that for ages ... I dont think they will announce 8 in 2022 .. it was 5 years between 6.0 GA and 7.0 GA (2020)
 
zer0sum

zer0sum

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2013
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ARNiTECT said:
I recently read that it is the end of the road for USB boot drives for ESXi 7.
I was ready to upgrade my Homelab from 6.7 to 7.0 and I am now considering what to install ESXi on to.
I have passed through my onboard SATA controller to a storage VM (OmniOS), so I have no onboard ports available.
I could use a PCIe x1 Sata controller card, but instead I was thinking of using a USB-to-SATA adapter, to make use of the onboard USB socket and an old Sata-SSD drive.
Would this be ok?
Click to expand...
I think you'd be far better off installing a HBA and passing that through to the OmniOS VM.
Performance should be even better, and then your onboard sata ports will be free and you'll have plenty of flexitibility for sata-dom or just a regular old ssd :D
 
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ARNiTECT

Member
Jan 14, 2020
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zer0sum said:
I think you'd be far better off installing a HBA and passing that through to the OmniOS VM.
Performance should be even better, and then your onboard sata ports will be free and you'll have plenty of flexitibility for sata-dom or just a regular old ssd :D
Click to expand...
Yep, I've done that too! (HBA: 9400-16i & PLX: AOC-SHG3-4M2P)
I've used all the PCIe slots (NIC & GPUs) and tried to carefully balance the bandwidth
...just a PCIe x1 slot left.

Planning to test a SI-PEX40064 (Marvell 88SE9215) for extra 4x SATA, which worked in my secondary server under ESXi 7. Regardless of ESXi boot, I need this for my OmniOS storage VMs. My current PCI 32bit HBA is a bit slow.

I have a spare HBA IBM M1015, but at PCIe 2.0, I think the x1 slot speed would bottleneck compared with the onboard controller for 8x HDD.

I'm not keen to boot ESXi from an HBA, as it seems like an additional point of failure.

If I stick with a USB boot thumbdrive, it sounds like I 'should' relocate the OSDATA scratch/vmtools/logs/core-dumps etc. elsewhere. If I do, then I'll need an SATA SSD anyway, but at least I can store other data/VMs on it.
 
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Witzker

New Member
Jan 5, 2022
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Hi
Im totaly new with this stuff

Is it possible to boot ESXi from a Synology iSCSI lun or similar?
 
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Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Never tried it, but why not. If you mount the export in the HCA then its a drive like any other (remote mounted drive)
 
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Witzker

New Member
Jan 5, 2022
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THX
But is there a special network card needed?
I have a Tiny Lenovo ThinkCenter M93p
Is it possible with this device?
 
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dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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Dunno about that card, but you can get cheap 1gb iSCSI HBAs that work. I've done it in the past. As Rand_ says, it's just a remote drive.
 
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Witzker

New Member
Jan 5, 2022
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THX
I have a Tiny Lenovo ThinkCenter M93p

Will it be possible as is? Without additional card?

(sorry, I'm totally new with this server stuff)
 
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dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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Well, I looked up that unit, and without any docs or manual, it's hard to say. I'd love to help, but I'm not willing to spend an inordinate amount of time digging for this. Unless that unit has a builtin iSCSI client, the answer is likely no.
 
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Witzker

New Member
Jan 5, 2022
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Rand__ said:
so just give it a try :)
Click to expand...
OK - THX for confirming It's possible!

BUT As I'm a newbie with all this server stuff
I must say, I really don't know how to start.

As I figured out, I need a
1) PXE server on Synology
2) a SAN (LUN iSCSi) on Synology
3) instructions how to set up Boot from PXE in Bios of the Lenovo Tiny M93p

is that "all"

Does anyone have the patience to guide me step by step?
Or where can I turn to learn?
Is there anyone on YouTube you could recommand, I could ask for a video?
 
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