Install VMware esxi on a USB device

In the previous article in this series, we discussed the advantages, disadvantages, and prerequisites of installing VMware esxi on flash. In the following short article, we will learn about the installation process and some content related to the configuration and maintenance of the esxi flash drive.

 

 

 

 

 

The process of creating a USB Flash boot disk starts from the installation of CD on esxi to start the server. The difference is that the destination location of the VMware esxi installation is no longer the traditional server hard disk, it is replaced by a USB flash drive.

One of the methods to install VMware esxi on a USB flash drive

In this installation method, you can also choose any server or workstation hardware platform that supports esxi. After preparation, follow these steps to create an esxi Flash boot disk.

1. download the required ISO package for esxi installation from the VMware official website.

2. After the ISO file is downloaded, burn it to a CD or DVD disk for ease of use on servers or workstations.

3. Check whether the flash drive has been correctly installed on the USB interface of the server. Start the system from the created CD or DVD boot disk and run the esxi installer.

4. Remember to select a USB flash drive instead of a local hard drive partition on the prompt page.

5. After the installation process is complete, remove the CD or DVD boot disk and restart the system. Later, esxi will start from the flash drive.

Method 2 for installing VMware esxi on a USB flash drive

Another early method to install VMware esxi on a USB flash drive was to use vmware workstation, which was also mentioned by VMware's Eric gray. The procedure is as follows:

1. Create a new virtual machine in workstation, a desktop virtualization product, and ensure that it has at least 2 GB of memory to support running of esxi. Workstation 7 itself has this feature, and earlier versions 6.5 need to be adjusted. Next, customize the hardware configuration and add a USB controller to it.

2. Select removable devices from the sub-menu under the VM to directly add the USB flash drive to the VM. It can be noted that when the USB flash memory is connected to the virtual machine, it is displayed as removed on the host machine.

3. After the esxi installer is started, select a USB flash drive (instead of a virtual hard disk of the Virtual Machine) on the screen as the installation destination of esxi. You can easily identify which one is correct from the displayed size of the flash drive (for example, the size of the USB flash drive is 4 GB ).

4. After the installation is complete, turn off the VM power, unplug the flash drive, and insert the flash drive into the server. In this way, we can continue.

Note: once an esxi Flash boot disk is created through a VMware Workstation Virtual Machine, it cannot be used to start the virtual machine. Workstation does not support boot from the esxi flash drive. Of course, you can solve this problem through some tips. If you are interested, you can test the method of starting from the flash drive.

After installing VMware esxi to a flash drive, if you plug the flash drive into a Windows PC, you can note that the volume label has been changed to hypervisor0, as shown in, open it and you can see that there are only four files in it.

In addition, we can see that the drive size is 4 MB instead of 4 GB, because on the flash disk, we can see only one 4 MB File Allocation Table partition, while other partitions can only be identified by esxi. If we use the Disk Manager Partition Manager to check the esxi flash disk layout, we can find the following situations:

The 4 MB primary partition on the boot disk is the boot area and runs when the host starts. In addition, we can see that a MB extended partition is divided into four logical partitions. Their Respective functions are as follows:

• The first MB logical partition contains the kernel code (vmkernel) of the hypervisor ). These codes are packaged into several files, with a total size of 60 MB. The custom parts made by any manufacturer (such as HP, Dell, and IBM) are also stored in this partition.
• The second MB logical partition is used to store the backup of hypervisor kernel code During esxi upgrade. This partition is empty during initialization (only contains a 150-byte boot. cfg file) and will not be written until esxi needs to be upgraded. During the upgrade, all files in logical partition 1 are copied to logical partition 2 for backup before the new esxi image is written to logical partition 1.
• The third MB logical partition is empty during initialization. It can be used as the storage of the kernel program fault diagnosis code.
• The fourth MB logical partition stores the VMware tool ISO file, vsphere client installer, other tools and drivers, and static storage. These extra files are not part of the vmkernel.

The following is a detailed list of these partitions:

When you do not need to use the flash memory in Windows, you need to use low-level formatting to delete these partitions and files. Because the disk management provided by Windows cannot implement this operation.

There are many low-level formatting Methods for Flash memory. The simplest one is to use the free tool "HDD low level format tool ". Download, install, and run this applet. Select a USB flash drive (make sure you have selected the correct disk), and then click "continue. Next, select Format this device on the low-level format page. After formatting, select the drive from Windows Explorer and reformat it to the full size.

Average Life of USB Flash Boot Disk

You may have been worried about how long the flash disk can be used. Once it fails, the entire server will stop working. A flash drive usually supports a limited number of Write cycles, which means that it can only support a certain number of total writes before it starts to expire.

However, flash memory products with high quality pass can be used for many years. before it starts to have problems, it can support at least 10 thousand Write cycles. In addition, in most cases, esxi only reads data from the flash drive, and reading does not reduce the lifetime of the flash drive. Therefore, your flash drive can be used for many years theoretically. However, considering the failure of the flash drive, we should keep a backup of the esxi Flash boot disk.

Create an esxi Flash boot disk backup

The process of creating an esxi Flash boot disk backup is very simple. Unfortunately, we cannot simply copy the files in the drive from one flash to another. You can create a hard disk image file for the flash drive, and then use the image to write it to other flash drives of the same size and small size. In addition, we can use the open-source software USB image tool to implement this process.

First, insert the flash drive in the Windows workstation, run the tool, select the created flash drive, and then click the backup button.

In this process, the esxi flash drive is automatically backed up as a. IMG file. Next, remove the flash drive and insert another one of the same size. Click the restore button to load the image file to the new drive.

This method can be used not only to regularly back up the esxi Flash boot disk, but also to quickly create multiple esxi FLASH Boot disks for different servers.

Finally, installing VMware esxi on a flash drive is a good way to save on the cost of server hardware. It can also enable new servers quickly and concisely. However, if you have installed esxi on the local hard disk, there is no need to replace it. For new servers, you must consider this method.

If you are concerned about the related technical support issues, VMWare provides comprehensive technical support for installing esxi on flash memory, refer to the content on the "esxi hardware requirements" page.