PE T620 Problem Solving Upgrade Path

Tag # [removed for TOS]

General questions about IT support, Upgrade Path Etc.

Have a 3 year old T620 that we have local IT support contract that is in a failed state.

Was operating fine for three years, then one of 6 in raid 5 showed predicted failure.

Consultant asked why we did not have OMSA installed, then tried to install and found our ESXI or VM 5-6 versions behind and OSMA probably would not install because of that.  Presume VM updated as OMSA was installed but then all issues started after Automated Sunday reboot.  VM would not reboot.

Files accessible but VM soft corrupted?

Been in semi-functional state since then, with one of our two virtual servers moved to loaner T410.

Yesterday (Starting 4th Week ) Consultant came to update firmware, software and swap predicted fail 600gb 15k hot swap HDD.  Tried to swap last week with server online but found firmware would not support hot swap with more than one VM server.  

Unable to update firmware as Dell download site down yesterday, Consultant proceeded to swap HDD with server down then had trouble recognizing drive then tried to install ESXi on new drive creating two instances of ESXi then would not boot our limping along server. 

Now down again today, they want to rebuild VM server from last image(yesterday) on T620 without performing firmware and software updates.

I don't want to spend any more time and effort on VM servers until all firmware and software updated, fear incompatible versions of same causing these issues as opposed to any hardware problems. 

Would prefer to buy second T620 and migrate servers/files over and troubleshoot current T620 later after all updates.

Any advice?