My first choice would be to get an additional switch. Put it into a separate Meraki network. Configure that Meraki network to have a different maintenance window to the main network. Then connect a backup NIC from each ESXi host to it, and configure it for backup only in VMWare. This switch would uplink to your MS225s. This way the ESXi hosts are always able to talk to each other, and wont go into a saved state. With regard to this switch: You could get a single MS425 - a pure 10Gbe switch - and actually use it as the primary with backup going to the MS225. You could get another MS225-24 so you could 10Gbe connect to the main switches. You could get a much cheaper MS120, use it purely for backup, and 1Gbe connect to the MS225s. If you can't do that, then yes you could break your current stack and put them into separate networks (I have done this myself). You loose LACP and layer 3 routing. If you aren't using those, or could lice without them, then it is definitely an option.
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