Backup Files to External Drive

[neopat]

Hi

I currently have Virtual Machines with multiple TB of data. Now I want to move this data to a complete other location without ESX. What is the best/simplest way to copy this data to an external disk (usb/ntfs), which can later be accessed by windows.

Thanks for suggestions

[rriva]

what do you mean "can later be accessed by windows" ?

If you mean simply access the files, and you just have the external storage i.e. a NAS, you could simply copy to that device with robocopy, and keep it in sync.

After this when you want to definitely migrate all data, you could simply launch robocopy again with "exclude older" options to have a very quick sync and point to the data in the new location.

If you want to use the data (or access it) in other way, please give us more details.

Riccardo Riva

VCP,RHCE,FCNSA

If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thank You!

[neopat]

"can later be accessed by windows": sorry, with that I meant that I can access the files from windows - what i wanted to say is, that if i create another vmdk file, that this won't help as I can't copy the files from there. or can i?

the nas solution is also the only I got. there is no simple way to attach it by usb and then copy over all data from the virtual machine to the usb drive. right?

thanks

[paul_xtravirt]

Assuming you want to copy data out of the VMDK and to a USB or NAS Box, connect the NAS box to another physical Windows PC, share it and then copy the data across the network.

If you want to copy the VMDK files themselves, you can upload from the datastore using the datastore browser to the client running the VI Client that you are connected through, or you could mount a USB hard disk to the ESX console and copy the files to the device from the console (see this whitepaper for details: http://knowledge.xtravirt.com/white-papers/esx-3x.html (http://knowledge.xtravirt.com/white-papers/index.php?option=com_remository&func=download&id=24&chk=bd7e82e36af44d023b5e1047df64ed54&no_html=1)

If you found this helpful, please consider awarding points