Attach a Tape Drive on ESX 3 for use within a VM

[bent14]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone is actually using a tape drive that is physically attached to an ESX 3.x Host from within a Virtual Machine?

In the Backup Guide it says it is supported however only with Adaptec SCSI cards.

When I try to match up the models/drivers in the supported I/O guide I cannot!

All these cards look very old and the drivers used on the existing cards are newer versions.

It doesn't seem that anyone is doing this?

I'm trying to avoid putting a physical backup server in a small DR site that has only 2xESX and an iSCSI SAN. It would seem that this is not a good option though.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Ben

[piacas]

I have Adaptec AHA-2940U2/U2W working in VI3.......one thing to note is the backups are slower than on a physical server......

[acr]

We have a couple of customers who do this.. As stated the Backup is slower..

[bent14]

Thanking you!

The challenge I have however is that I need a PCI-X card that has a 68-pin VHDCI connection to hook up to a HP Ultirum 448 Tape Drive.

Maybe I'm going crazy but it seems difficult.

Anyone seen a SCSI card that might work?

This is to connect to a into a HP 448 Tape Drive.

[bent14]

Found an appropriate card! It was obvious in the end. Having one of those days.

The

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/scsi_tech/entry/ASC-29160/index.htm

will work in this situation.

[violet68]

I tried HP Auto loader 1/8 connected to ESX using Ultra 320 scsi card, and using Arcserve11.5 as backup software and i couldnt get it to work.