VMware has recently released a new build of ESXi to fix a bug that causes ESXi to hang for a long period of time while it tries to connect to all iSCSI targets. I’ve personally seen this happen in my lab and it can take quite a long time for ESXi to boot as it will try 9 times to connect to each iSCSI target. VMware sees this as a serious enough issue that not only have they released a patch to fix the problem but they’ve also released a special patch express release of ESXi. So when you go to download ESXi 5.0 now you will see two options for the ESXi ISO: one for systems without software iSCSI configured and one for systems with software iSCSI configured. If you are already using software iSCSI or plan on it at some point you should choose the ISO image for systems with software iSCSI. You can read more about this issue in this VMware KB article. Here is the details on the two ESXi builds:
- Original release: Version 5.0.0 – Release Date 8/24/11 – Build 469512
- iSCSI patch release: Version 5.0.0 – Release Date 11/10/11 – Build 504890
