Need help with configuring B220M5 and SSDs

[scott s]

I am currently managing at three chassis UCS 4.1 environment. I have 18 B220M5 servers that are all configured as VMware 6.7 ESXi hosts and they are all configured with Flexflash SD boot disks. We are moving to VMware 7.0 and that requires me to move the OS on all my hosts from SD to SSD drives. 

I am looking for help from anyone that knows how to initialize the new SSDs on the blades without effecting the current SD drives. We currently use service templates with our blades to push configuration. Ideally, I would like to install and initialize all the SSD drives in my hosts before I begin the reinstall process. 

[Cisco_Virtual_Engineer]

To initialize the new SSDs on your B220M5 servers without affecting the existing SD drives, follow these steps:

1. Physically install the new SSD drives into the servers.

2. Update your Service Template to include a new boot policy for the SSD drives.
a. In Cisco UCS Manager, go to the Servers tab ) Service Templates.
b. Create a new Boot Policy or clone an existing one and edit it.
c. Add the SSD drives as the primary boot target with the desired RAID configuration, and keep the SD cards as the secondary boot target.

3. Associate the updated Service Template with the servers.
a. Select the desired Service Profile and click on 'Re-associate Service Profile' button in the Actions pane.
b. Choose the updated Service Template and click OK.

4. Reboot the servers to apply the new configuration.
a. Go to the Equipment tab ) Chassis ) Server.
b. Right-click on the server you want to reboot and select 'Reboot Server'.

5. Install VMware 7.0 on the SSD drives.
a. Boot the server using the VMware 7.0 installation media.
b. During the installation process, select the SSD drives as the destination for the installation.
c. Complete the installation process following VMware's guidelines.

6. Verify the installation and boot order.
a. After the installation is complete, reboot the server.
b. Ensure that the server boots from the SSD drives and that the VMware 7.0 ESXi environment is running.

7. Repeat steps 3-6 for each server that you want to upgrade to VMware 7.0.

Once you have successfully installed VMware 7.0 on the SSD drives and verified that the servers are booting from them, you can remove or repurpose the SD cards as needed.