ESXi 4.1: Can a removable hard drive (SATA) be made available to guests (VMs)?

[ReedMikel2]

Hi All,

I have my ESXi 4.1 host running on a Dell PE T610. I have a Tandberg Data RDX Quickstor 300GB removable SATA drive that I would like to use as a backup device with one of my VMs (Win SBS 2008). In vSphere Client I see the drive listed under the tab (not under ). I know I can add it as a 2nd datastore, but I really only want my VMs, rather than the host, to have access to it. If I do add it as a datastore, I do not think I can use it as a removable drive with my VM(s).

I am a VMware newbie, so maybe I am just overlooking something simple?

Attached is a screen shot from my vSphere Client showing the Configuration->Hardware->Storage tab info. I have no idea what the Path Selection options for this device are used for. The online help is quite useless, as it simply reiterate the same vague terminology as on the screen

TIA,

-Mike

[DanThompson]

I will concede that USB drives can be fickle little B's; the drive letter walking can be overcome by a script that runs in Windows which basically hard codes the drive serial to a drive letter. There are some little service applications out there that will accomplish the same thing as well (HighRely backup devices come to mind as they ship with a little app that does this). One nice thing about this solution is you can then take the USB drive and plug it into a Windows box and browse the VMDK files (or crack them open to extract data if necessary) and there is no fear of Windows deciding it doesn't like the volume and punting it when it initializes it. Again.. just an opinion. Sounds like you're close to having your solution ironed out.

[ReedMikel2]

Yes, I found that USB drive walking fix a few years ago and have used it at a few client sites. But my impression of USB is that it's not server-worthy. Just my opinion...

[Kunari]

Mike,

How's the RDX drive working our for you? We're just getting ready to implement ESX4.1 on a Dell 2970 with a internal RDX and would like to use it for backups too.

[ReedMikel2]

I have not had the time to figure out how to unmount the RDX so that it can be removed and a different one inserted. On my own server I at least have it backing up to one RDX cartridge every night. But I really need to figure how to work with removable drives such as the RDX from within a VM. I am amazed that some gurus haven’t posted an answer yet. I would think lots of people would want to do this same thing...

[Kunari]

Well, I'll let you know if I figure out something when we get to installing here next week or if I find anything in my research.

How are you removing the RDX drives right now? Shutting down the Host?

[ReedMikel2]

Sadly, I am just so busy that I do not have the time to figure this out - so I am leaving just ONE RDX cartridge in all the time on my ESXi host. A Win 2008 SBS VM is performing Windows-based backup to it every night. So if my machines catches fire - I'm screwed. I really have to figure this one out soon.

Appreciate your willingness to share a solution if you beat me to it. Thanks!!

[Kunari]

Not a RDX drive, but this setting may help: “Well, I found that setting the "LVM.DisallowSnapshotLun" setting to "0", and the refreshing the Storage, would cause the missing VMFS partition on that disk to mount automagically!“ http://communities.vmware.com/thread/189547

[ReedMikel2]

Hmmm, where exactly do you make that setting? Looks promising. Once I figure out where to enter this setting, I'll give it a try...

[Kunari]

Umm... no idea just yet, we're doing the P2V conversion today so I'll be able to experiment next week.

[taylorb]

Can't you just add virtual USB ports to a specific VM and use the device as is?

[Kunari]

If it was an external USB device, some RDX units are external, however in our case it's a internal SATA device.

[Kunari]

Well, you're ahead of me still. I can't even get VMWare to make a RDM.

[ReedMikel2]

Look at my note (#11, Aug 2nd) in this thread, as that is how I got an RDM created.

Since I have my RDM working as a fixed drive, I wonder if there is actually just a Windows tweak that I need to do to make Windows see it as removable? Normally one would run the RDX intsallation program that comes with these SATA units and it would make Windows see the RDX as a removable drive. But that installation program does not detect the RDX hardware when run on my SBS2008 VM. Maybe if I configure the ESXi host's "passthrough" setting to include my server's SATA IDE controller, then I might be able to get the RDX installation software to "see" it and do its thing.

I am going to move my RDM storage device fropm my SBS2008 VM to a test VM (Win XP). That way I can play with the guest settings and even reboot the VM if necessary. I do not want to keep rebooting my SBS2008 VM since it's my mail server and so much more...

[DSTAVERT]

You are trying to fit a standalone home desktop solution to a virtualized Server environment. Even if you can get it to work , is it the most appropriate solution in a virtual environment let alone a business scenario. I don't think so. Look at the solutions that do work and are supported. Add a network storage device and add it to your ESXi hosts as a datastore.

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[ReedMikel2]

There's nothing home desktop'ish about what I am trying to do. On the contrary, it is rather technical (as you can tell since this discussion is still active).

DStavart - your suggestion has been offered by a few others in the past as an easier solution. However, I am not interested in what's easiest. I want what makes the most sense for my non-profit customers who do not have big budgets. Each client does have an underutilized server running ESXi, with removable SATA storage like a Dell RD1000 or Tandberg Data RDX QuikStor drive. Sure, I could opt to purchase a NAS drive, plus some form of removable drive(s), but that just increases the costs, wastes energy etc.

I am going to use this approach even for my own office, as I dislike spending monies on unnecessary equipment and wasting power.

I am sure your suggestion is very valid for larger/richer organizations. Thanks!

[Kunari]

We're a small company, we don't have any off-site locations for a backup SAN, nor the budget to do so.

In our case we want to use the RDX drive as a backuyp device instead of tabes. We can get 1TB RDX drives that would meet our bakcup needs. Rebooting this VM isn't a issue, it's just running the backup software, so we can reboot it whenever we change a RDX drive. So I'm not as concerned about hot-swap just getting the VM to see the drive for backups. Hot-swap would be a nice bonus of course.

[DSTAVERT]

For the cost of an RDX device you can get a small NFS device. Or use a retired workstation and install any standard Linux distribution and enable NFS. Configuration is a simple one-liner. The less you mess with the hardware directly the better. Stop thinking about the ESXi host as a piece of hardware. Stop thinking about how you used to do things when you had individual hardware servers.

Disaster recovery comes for free when you use this as intended. With shared storage, even a low end or home made one can get you back and working in minutes.

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[Kunari]

Baby steps DSTAVERT, baby steps. I appericiate what your saying and I agree I'm still divorcing myself from thinking of the server & OS as a single unit. Remember, both the OP and I are "VM Noobs" and the OP has a few months head start or me. I agree on the initial cost of the RDX units & drives, but in our case we alredy had one in the server that we're turning into a ESX server. We got it as a "bonus" when we purchased the server but never used it for much in the past.

A quick overview of our setup: (We're a one location company so everything is in our building)

Two: ESX servers. One is a new server "on order" and the other is the existing server with an internal RDX drive.

One: iSCSI SAN as central storage for VM Guest OS

Plus a few other physical servers that haven't yet moved to VMs

Our need/want for the RDX is we're wanting to get rid of our old LTO tape for backups (User Files, DataBases, Email, etc) to take them off-site. Our new backup software is capable of using the RDX for backups (our old software was not). I'm not sure how a NFS device would work for this purpose unless we could get at least two, to setup a rotation.

I've played with OpenFiler, we decided not to use it for our central storage solution. I was thinking to repurpose it as a "backup" device for guest VMs but haven't figured out how to actually backup the guest VMs yet. Still kicking aroud that idea for now, maybe that is what you were refering to for NFS?

[DSTAVERT]

This isn't about big steps at all. What you want to do isn't a grand idea even if you figured out how to make it work. Don't work hard at something that isn't practical and not supported. Look at things that work well, supported and relatively easy to make work and in the bargain make DR a simple procedure.

Openfiler does support NFS (lots of low cost or free ways to implement NFS other than Openfiler). NFS is a supported storage platform. If you want a great way to create backup VMs have a look at http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9843 or http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760.

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[Kunari]

I agree with you that using NFS to backup the guest VMs is the way to go, but we need the weekly backups of our Files and DBs too These backups still need to be taken off-site for DR via some kind of removable storage.

I'd like to find a off-site hosting at a cost I can afford to get away from "Tapes" plus I'm not sure out old T1 could handle the bandwith (We're in a bit of a dead spot for high-speed internet).