Upgrade from a Non-vSAN Datastore to a vSAN Datastore

Upgrading pools to use VMware vSAN datastores involves changing a pool setting and then rebalancing the pool.

The tasks outlined in this procedure describe upgrading from a non-vSAN datastore to a vSAN datastore. Upgrading from vSAN datastore on a vSphere 5.5 or earlier cluster (a Tech Preview feature) is not supported.

Important: Because this procedure involves recomposing the desktop pool, any changes that end users have made to the operating system disk will be lost.

Prerequisites

• Verify that all ESXi hosts in the cluster used for the pool are upgraded to 5.5 Update 1 or later and that they meet the system requirements for the vSAN feature. VMware recommends that you upgrade to vSphere 6.0 or later because the vSAN feature available with vSphere 6.0 and later releases contains many performance improvements over the feature that was available with vSphere 5.5 Update 1. With vSphere 6.0 this feature also has broader HCL (hardware compatibility) support.

  For information about upgrades, see Upgrade ESXi Hosts and Their Virtual Machines and see the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide. For information about vSAN requirements and upgrades, see the Administering VMware vSAN document.

• In vCenter Server, verify that the following privileges are added to the Composer role:

  Profile-Driven Storage: All
  Folder: Create Folder & Delete Folder
  Host: Configuration: Advanced settings

Procedure

1. Use vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1 or later to enable vSAN for the vSphere cluster.
   For more information, see the vSphere Storage document.
2. Upgrade the desktop pool to the latest version, as described in Upgrade View Composer Desktop Pools.
   This process includes installing the latest version of Horizon Agent on the parent virtual machine and taking a snapshot.
3. Recompose the pool on the non-vSAN datastore using the snapshot of the parent virtual machine you just created.
   For instructions on recomposing pools, click the Help button in Horizon Administrator.
4. Edit the pool settings of the newly upgraded desktop pool to enable the Use VMware Virtual SAN pool setting, change the datastore from a non-vSAN datastore to a vSAN datastore, and use the Rebalance command.
   For instructions on editing server settings and using the Rebalance command, click the Help button in Horizon Administrator.