The vSAN Host Cannot be Moved to the Destination Cluster

I tried adding an ESXi host to a vCenter cluster, but it failed with this error –

“The vSAN host cannot be moved to the destination cluster: destination cluster is vSAN disabled.”

The Problem

The host I was trying to add to my new cluster belonged to a cluster with vSAN enabled. However, the new cluster does not have vSAN enabled.

So, the move triggered the error.

The Solution

The solution is to SSH to the ESXi host and run the following command:

esxcli vsan cluster leave

If you need help doing this, the following subsections explain the detailed steps:

Step 1: Enable SSH on the Host

Sign in to the host’s web client, right-click Host, point to Services, and select “Enable Secure Shell (SSH).

Once you enable SSH, a warning message will be displayed on the host’s home page.

Step 2: Remove the Host from the Previous Cluster

1. Open Putty, enter the host’s IP or FQDN, and click Open.



2. Sign in with the host’s root account or any either account with administrative permissions. Finally, run this command.

The command takes a while to run.

esxcli vsan cluster leave

Step 3: Disable SSH on the Host

Reverse the steps in step 1 to disable SSH on the host.



Once you’ve removed the ESXi host from the previous vSAN cluster membership, try adding it to the new cluster and the process should succeed.

Conclusion

The – “The vSAN host cannot be moved to the destination cluster: destination cluster is vSAN disabled.” – error can throw you off balance. However, the fix is very straightforward as I have shown in this quick guide.