VMware ESXi host upgrades

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In my home lab I have ESXi hosts running on USB sticks and I want to upgrade them to the latest version. As the hosts are on USB devices I was wondering what options I have to upgrade them. Is it just a case of removing the USB device and loading the new version of ESXi on them and then plugging them back in and rebooting or is there a slicker way of doing it for example via update manager or can I not do that with hosts that are on USB devices...

 

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What version of ESXi are you currently running?

 

I am currently running ESXi 5.1 and vCenter 5.5

 

Pretty sure I went down the route of an inplace upgrade when I did it (I go straight to 5.5 now).

I would probably wait a couple of days before you do upgrade tho (hint here being that things are about to change).

 

Thanks. Can the in place upgrade that you refer to be done through vCenter? Does it make any difference that I created my USB bootable using third party software?

 

Being a bit of a dick but I actually blogged about the upgrade process for an in-place upgrade - ESXi 5.5 Upgrade in 7 Steps « Everything Virtual

Again if you like the information please vote for my blog at Top VMware/virtualization blogs 2014

 

I prefered to see it work via the GUI first. I have found a video on YouTube demonstrating it being done via update manager and I have just tried it on one of my ESXi hosts and it worked