VMware Cloud Community
PayableOnDeath
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

USB Hard Drive on esxi guest

Hi

I am thinking about using ESXi however I was wondering if I would be able to plug a usb drive in the ESXi host hardware and have it show up in a Guest VM? just like it would if I plugged it in to my PC

Thanks

David

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

USB virtualization is not yet available in ESX/ESXi 3.x or 4.0.

Maybe in the future releases.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
7 Replies
AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

USB virtualization is not yet available in ESX/ESXi 3.x or 4.0.

Maybe in the future releases.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
Reply
0 Kudos
PayableOnDeath
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I hope they will put in a future release, they do it for workstation so would have hoped it would have been on ESX/ESXi, looks like I will hold off using ESXI untill they do, or until till I can afford to build a new server with bigger drives Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

At this time the only available solution is use USB to network products.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
Formatter
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

If you use RDP to use the guest OS then in RDP you can allow the use of a usb drive on the VM

PayableOnDeath
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

AndreTheGiant - can you recomend any?

Formatter - I would do but at the moment its connected to my file server to increase the space and I dont RDP in to it much

Reply
0 Kudos
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

There are any number of small NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. Buffalo, Iomega, Linksys, Seagate, HP, etc. Many can use AD authentication. You can usually also plug in external USB storage devices. These devices are generally visible to the guests only unless they also support NFS.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
Reply
0 Kudos
AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

AndreTheGiant - can you recomend any?

Most of them work fine, but most are not cheap.

See also:

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
Reply
0 Kudos