VMware ESXi is a type1 hypervisor or dedicated virtualization operating system that runs on the host hardware layer and has full access to the resources; while Workstation/Player is a type 2 hypervisor and applications interacting with the underlying operating system to get access to hardware. For this reason, ESXi has greater performance than Workstation.
Also, ESXi is made for server clusters and if you have limited RAM for dense VMs, but don’t want to worry about the RAM and functions, you’d better stick with ESXi.
In this blog, you’ll learn 3 different methods to move Workstation VMs to the ESXi server.
Method 1: Export VMware Workstation VM to OVF/OVA and Import it to ESXi
Export VMware Workstation VM to OVF/OVA
1. Start VMware Workstation, choose the target VM and go to VM> Manage > Change Hardware Compatibility…
2. Choose the Hardware compatibility version from the dropdown list and click Next.
3. In the Change Hardware Compatibility Wizard, select Create a new clone of this virtual machine, or Alter this virtual machine, then click Next.
4. Provide a new VM name and browse for location if you select to create a new clone. Click Finish.
5. Choose the target VM and click File > Export to OVF…
6. Click Save after designating a location to save the exported files.
Import it to ESXi
1. Start the VMware ESXi client, go to Virtual Machines > Create/Register VM.
2. On the Select creation type page, choose Deploy a virtual machine from an OVF or OVA file and click Next.
3. On the Select OVF and VMDK files page, enter the new VM name, and click the blank to specify the exported OVF/OVA file. Click Next.
4. On the Select storage page, designate a datastore and click Next.
5. On the Deployment options page, choose the Network mappings, Disk provisioning, and Power on automatically or not. Click Next.
6. On the Ready to complete page, check the settings and hit Finish. Progress is visible in Recent tasks.
Method 2: Upload Workstation VMs to ESXi
1. Start VMware Workstation and go to File > Connect to Server… Accept any self-designed certificate warnings displayed.
2. Input the Server name, User name, and Password of the ESXi server and hit Connect (you can manage an ESXi host from VMware Workstation).
3. Power off the VM to be uploaded, go to VM > Manage > Change Hardware Compatibility… and choose the compatible version of the VM hardware.
4. Navigate to VM > Manage > Upload… Choose the ESXi server in the pop-up window and click Next.
5. Enter a Name for the new VM and designate its Datastore. Click Finish.
Method 3: Create a ESXi VM with converted VMDK
1. Choose the target VM and click File > Export to OVF… Choose separate files to export.
2. Upload the VMDK file to the ESXi datastore using SCP
[root@esxi:/vmfs/volumes/datastore] ls
...
Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk
...
3. Convert Workstation VMDK to ESXi with vmkfstools.
[root...] mv Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk.workstation
[root...] vmkfstools -i Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk.fusion Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk
Destination disk format: VMFS zeroedthick
Cloning disk 'Windows-10-64-Enterprise-disk2.vmdk.workstation'...
Clone: 100% done.
4. Click New Virtual Machine... under Actions.
5. In the Select a creation type tab, select Create a new virtual machine. Then add a name, computer resource, storage, compatibility, and guest OS in the following wizard.
6. In the Customize hardware page, click × at the right of the New Hard disk to erase the default disk designated to the VM.
7. Click ADD NEW DEVICE> Existing Hard Disk> choose the converted VMDK file. Then the file will be listed as a Disk File.
8. Create and start the VM. You can see the ESXi VM from Workstation.
Full protection for VMware ESXi
Before any risky conversion operations or after the process, it’s best to have a professional VMware backup solution in place. Vinchin Backup & Recovery is an agentless data solution for 10+ platforms including VMware, XenServer, oVirt, Red Hat Virtualization, Oracle OLVM, OpenStack, etc., 6 databases, Linux & Windows Servers, and NAS.
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Sum up
You may want to migrate VMware Workstation VMs to ESXi servers for some reasons, be it minimum downtime or less overhead of ESXi. I introduce 3 methods to move Workstation VMs to ESXi in this blog. Use the method that best suits your needs and environment. If you are looking for an overall backup solution for ESXi, you might as well try Vinchin Backup & Recovery.
