7.0

6 (Optional) If you select Enable stateful installs on the host, specify information about the disk
to use.
Option Description
Arguments for first disk When configuring a System Image Install disk, you have multiple options to
define the device you want ESXi to be installed to and booted from. You can
use the following arguments to define the disk for the installation:
n esx – The first disk detected containing a valid installation of ESXi
n local – The first local disk detected by ESXi after boot
n device model
n device vendor
n vmkernel device driver name
You can get the values for the device model and vendor arguments by
running the command esxcli storage core device list in a console to
the ESXi host, logging in as the root. You get the vmkernel device driver
name argument by running the command esxcli storage core adapter
list. You must then identify the storage adapter to which your boot device is
connected.
By default, the system attempts to replace an existing ESXi installation, and
then attempts to write to the local disk.
You can use the Arguments for first disk field to specify a comma-separated
list of disks to use, in order of preference. You can specify more than one
disk. Use esx for the first disk with ESX installed on it, model and vendor
information, or specify the name of the vmkernel device driver. For example,
to have the system first look for a disk with the model name ST3120814A,
second for any disk that uses the mptsas driver, and third for the local disk,
specify ST3120814A,mptsas,local as the value of this field.
The first disk setting in the host profile specifies the search order for
determining which disk to use for the cache. The search order is specified
as a comma delimited list of values. The default setting localesx,local
specifies that vSphere Auto Deploy should first look for an existing local
cache disk. The cache disk is identified as a disk with an existing ESXi
software image. If vSphere Auto Deploy cannot find an existing cache disk, it
searches for an available local disk device. When searching for an available
disk vSphere Auto Deploy uses the first empty disk that does not have an
existing VMFS partition.
You can use the first disk argument only to specify the search order. You
cannot explicitly specify a disk. For example, you cannot specify a specific
LUN on a SAN.
Check to overwrite any VMFS
volumes on the selected disk
If you select this check box, the system overwrites existing VMFS volumes
if not enough space is available to store the image, image profile, and host
profile.
Check to ignore any SSD devices
connected to the host
If you select this check box , the system ignores any existing SSD devices and
does not store image profiles and host profiles on them.
7 Click Save to complete the host profile configuration.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
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