Copy data from USB drive to ESXi 4.1

[DustySRA]

I am working at a customer site. Their file server machine (Win 2003 Server 32-bit) ran out of internal disk space. To resolve it, they added a 2 TB external USB hard drive (about ½ used) and moved all the data and shares to the external drive. We were able to shutdown file sharing and disconnect the USB drive. Then we successfully migrated the physical server into the VMware 4.1 environment as a new VM. Next, we re-connected the USB to the VMware host that owns the Guest and restarted the file server. Everything is running smoothly, but the VM is still using the external USB drive preventing vMotion. We have tried various ways to copy the data from the USB drive into the virtual environment either to a separate virtual disk or as another Windows partition within the VM. The copy gets no more than 25% and times out.

Can anyone explain how we can bring the data on that external USB drive into the virtual environment?  

[DSTAVERT]

Welcome to the Communities.

I would try adding the USB disk to a workstation. Reun Converter and just select the USB disk for conversion copy the disk to a new VM on the ESXi server. Once done move the newly converted disk to the P2V'd server and add the disk to the VM.

[DustySRA]

Your suggestion is intriguing, but I am not sure it is the right answer. The file server is in production, so moving the USB drive will involve down time. We have some familiarity with VMware Workstation (WS), but no experience using WS as a source for migration. When the USB was plugged into a physical server, Converter could not see it. Your suggestion assumes that Converter will see the USB drive on a WS system that it could not see on a physical system. Assuming that is correct, what do I get after the conversion and how do I make that data available to the virtual file server?

Would it be better to take the discussion off-line?

[Walfordr]

DustySRA wrote:

Your suggestion is intriguing, but I am not sure it is the right answer. The file server is in production, so moving the USB drive will involve down time. We have some familiarity with VMware Workstation (WS), but no experience using WS as a source for migration. When the USB was plugged into a physical server, Converter could not see it. Your suggestion assumes that Converter will see the USB drive on a WS system that it could not see on a physical system. Assuming that is correct, what do I get after the conversion and how do I make that data available to the virtual file server?

Would it be better to take the discussion off-line?

The reference to workstation is not to VMware Workstation - I believe  David meant connect it to another physical system.  A small system that  you can convert from.  Assuming that converter sees the disk and you are able to convert it you would get a VMDK file that you would be able to attach to the VM.  All your data would be in the VMDK and you would have access once you mount it in windows.

Have you tried 3rd party solutions to copy the files to the new disk on the VM?  Tools like robocopy or richcopy are usually great at copying this amount of data.

[DustySRA]

Robert,

Thank you for the clarification, but it takes us further from resolution. You said, “Assuming that converter sees the disk and you are able to convert it…” That is the problem. Converter does not see the USB drive so we cannot convert it. We were hoping that using VMware Workstation would allow the drive to be seen.

We are going to try robocopy this evening and will report back our results.

[continuum]

yep - use robocopy.

You could use Workstation though too.
Create a descrtiptor-vmdk for the device by adding it to a VM as a physical disk once.
Then you can use vmware-vdiskmanager to convert the physical USB disk to any vmdk-format you like - even storing as VMFS directly on the esxi is available