6.04 MBps max on a USB harddrive

[Catsrules]

I have a USB harddrive, I used for a backup. I use to be able to get 30-50MBps on it, but after I reinstalled ESXI 4, I have only been able to get 6.04MBps max. I have tryed different guests, different usb ports, nothing seams to help. Any Ideas?

[J1mbo]

USB passthrough is slow - actually at 6MB/s I think you're doing quite well.

http://blog.peacon.co.uk/usb-passthrough-with-esxi-4-1/

http://blog.peacon.co.uk

Please award points to any useful answer.

Unofficial List of USB Passthrough Working Devices

[Catsrules]

I didn't know that USB passthrough had that bad a speed, Hmm is there a way I can have the USB drive as a databace drive so I can put virtural drives on there, if I can would that give me my speed?

USB is my only way I have to add extra Hard drive space, unless I want change my 4 120GB scsi drive to 300GB. and that will totaly blow my home server budget , I barly have enough for 1 300GB, much less 3 more.

[idle-jam · Accepted solution]

Even if you could an USB drive as datastore the performance will be slow due the single spindle of USB drive and also the IOPS of a SATA would be very little.

what bout building an old server with openfiler and presenting as iSCSI?

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

[Catsrules]

Hmm sounds interesting, I haven't heard of any of that. I googled it and it sounds like it acts like your a directly connected via scsi, is that correct?

So for this to work I would need a secondary server, I do have a spair P4 computer I have in a closet, would that be good enought?

Also can I turn this on and off when I need it. I allrealy have 2 computers allways on, sucking like 500Wats 24/7 hate to add more.

[idle-jam]

yes via iSCSI, it depends on the hard disk performance that whether is in a acceptable experience for you. when you turn it off then the VM stored there would not be accessible. alternatively you could purchase those cheap NAS drive that support NFS. it's newer, uses lower power consumption too. but to do expect good disk I/O from such devices.

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

[Catsrules]

Sounds cool, I will have to look in to it, I have been wondering what to do with that old computer. It looked like the software was free to used, is that correct?

Yeah I have tryed a few of those nas boxes, one died and I still have an old one, that gets me 2.5MBps copy speed, and has a terible OS, there is just no subsitute for didicated computer for a file server.

So I am guessng VMware supports iSCSI? Any thing I need to know before I get started?

[idle-jam]

need to google on how to make ESX see a iSCSI storage thats all. maybe you can drop by and ask if you need more help.

all the steps required are in the documentation of esx and openfiler. good luck buddy.

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

[J1mbo]

You can also use any linux (for example Ubuntu or Fedora) to build a simple NFS server. The system requirements are much lower than OpenFiler. Here's how: http://blog.peacon.co.uk/free-shared-storage-for-esxi/

http://blog.peacon.co.uk

Please award points to any useful answer.

Unofficial List of USB Passthrough Working Devices

[Catsrules]

Thanks, I guess I have a new project to work on.

Thanks for your help.

[Elozano]

Has anyone been able to achieve more than 6 MBps on their USB mass storage devices in pass-through mode?

Catsrules mentioned that he was able to get 30-50 MBps at some point. I'm wondering if this is a known issue or If I need an update or configuration tweak?

Thanks for the help.

[mcowger]

You are confusing units.

6MB/sec *is* 48 MBit/sec.

[Elozano]

Catsrules stated he was  able to get 30-50MB (big B=bytes?) per second initially before re-installing  ESXI4.  We attached to an EHCI host controller within the VM and are using USB  2.0, therefore I’d expect a theoretical max of 480 Mbps (little b=bits).  Do you  know about any limitation of ESXI to 48 Mbps?

Can Catsrules or anyone  else confirm they were able to see 30-50 MB (big B=bytes) per second with an  ESXI 4 USB passthrough scenario?

[mcowger]

No USB drive *EVER* actually hits 480Mbit (480 is actually only a peak # anyways, not sustained in the USB protocol).

For a USB 2.0 drive, 3-10MB/sec is dead on what would be expected given drive performance, etc. (regardless of the protocol speed).

[DSTAVERT]

Just imagine yourself with a 3TB USB 2 drive jammed full of VMs and uploading them through the datastore browser.

The instant SATA interfaces and eSATA connectors were available, USB for external storage made absolutely no sense what so ever.

[Catsrules]

Yes is was 30 Megabytes per second. because byte is the only unit the new windows' copy program displays speed. (I think everything except for ISP ads are shown in Bytes) I still don't know how I got it at this speed, but I haven't ever been able to reproduce it. (but haven't tried for a long time) It was ether some crazy glitch in ESXi or in windows' copying program was giving me false data. Or more likely I messed up on the copy some how and was copying it to a non usb hard drive.

From what I have been told there no way to be able to reach over 6 Mbps with ESXi. USB using

I did buy a SATA controller card so I could add sata drives, and they work like a charm. I am sure you can get a USB to Sata adapter and set it up that way.

On a normal computer I get 30-50 megabytes per second all of the time., with my USB 2 hard drive. It is just on ESXi that I get super slow speeds ;(