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Table Of Contents
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While performing an upgrade, your host preserves all files on the datastore.
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The datastore upgrade is a one-way process. After upgrading your datastore, you cannot revert it back
to its previous VMFS format.
An upgraded VMFS5 datastore differs from a newly formatted VMFS5.
Table 243. Comparing Upgraded and Newly Formatted VMFS5 Datastores
Characteristics Upgraded VMFS5 Formatted VMFS5
File block size 1, 2, 4, and 8MB 1MB
Subblock size 64KB 8KB
Partition format MBR. Conversion to GPT happens only
after you expand the datastore to a size
larger than 2TB.
GPT
Datastore limits Retains limits of VMFS3 datastore.
VMFS locking mechanism ATS+SCSI ATS-only (on hardware that
supports ATS)
ATS+SCSI (on hardware that
does not support ATS)
For more information about VMFS locking mechanisms and how to upgrade to ATS-only, see the vSphere
Storage publication.
Upgrade VMFS2 Datastores to VMFS3
If your datastore was formatted with VMFS2, you must first upgrade it to VMFS3. Because ESXi 5.x hosts
cannot access VMFS2 datastores, use a legacy host, ESX/ESXi 4.x or earlier, to access the VMFS2 datastore
and perform the VMFS2 to VMFS3 upgrade.
Prerequisites
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Open a vSphere Client connection to a vCenter Server.
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Commit or discard any changes to virtual disks in the VMFS2 datastore that you plan to upgrade.
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Back up the VMFS2 datastore.
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Be sure that no powered on virtual machines are using the VMFS2 datastore.
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Be sure that no other ESXi host is accessing the VMFS2 datastore.
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To upgrade the VMFS2 file system, its file block size must not exceed 8MB.
Procedure
1 Log in to the vSphere Client, and select a host from the inventory panel.
2 Click the Configuration tab and click Storage.
3 Select the datastore that uses the VMFS2 format.
4 Click Upgrade to VMFS3.
5 Perform a rescan on all hosts that see the datastore.
What to do next
After you upgrade your VMFS2 datastore to VMFS3, the datastore becomes available on the ESXi 5.x host.
You can now use the ESXi 5.x host to complete the process of upgrading to VMFS5.
Chapter 24 Managing Storage in the vSphere Client
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