Upgrade vSAN Disk Format Using RVC

After you have finished upgrading the vSAN hosts, you can use the Ruby vSphere Console (RVC) to continue with the disk format upgrade.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you are using the updated version of vCenter Server.
• Verify that the version of the ESXi hosts running in the vSAN cluster is 6.5 or later.
• Verify that the disks are in a healthy state from the Disk Management page. You can also run the vsan.disks_stats RVC command to verify disk status.
• Verify that the hardware and software that you plan on using are certified and listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide website at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
• Verify that you have enough free space to perform the disk format upgrade. Run the RVC vsan.whatif_host_failures command to determine that you have enough capacity to complete the upgrade or perform a component rebuild in case you encounter failure during the upgrade.
• Verify that you have PuTTY or similar SSH client installed for accessing RVC.

  For detailed information about downloading the RVC tool and using the RVC commands, see the RVC Command Reference Guide.

• Verify that your hosts are not in maintenance mode. When upgrading the on-disk format, do not place your hosts in maintenance mode. When any member host of a vSAN cluster enters maintenance mode, the available resource capacity in the cluster is reduced because the member host no longer contributes capacity to the cluster. The cluster upgrade might fail.
• Verify that there are no component rebuilding tasks currently in progress in the vSAN cluster by running the RVC vsan.resync_dashboard command.

Procedure

1. Log in to your vCenter Server using RVC.
2. Run the following RVC command to view the disk status: vsan.disks_stats /< vCenter IP address or hostname>/<data center name>/computers/<cluster name>
   For example: vsan.disks_stats /192.168.0.1/BetaDC/computers/VSANCluster
   The command lists the names of all devices and hosts in the vSAN cluster. The command also displays the current disk format and its health status. You can also check the current health of the devices in the Health Status column from the Disk Management page. For example, the device status appears as Unhealthy in the Health Status column for the hosts or disk groups that have failed devices.
3. Run the following RVC command: vsan.ondisk_upgrade <path to vsan cluster>
   For example: vsan.ondisk_upgrade /192.168.0.1/BetaDC/computers/VSANCluster
4. Monitor the progress in RVC.
   RVC upgrades one disk group at a time.

   After the disk format upgrade has completed successfully, the following message appears.

   Done with disk format upgrade phase

   There are n v1 objects that require upgrade Object upgrade progress: n upgraded, 0 left

   Object upgrade completed: n upgraded

   Done VSAN upgrade

5. Run the following RVC command to verify that the object versions are upgraded to the new on-disk format: vsan.obj_status_report