Mounting an IDE-to-USB disk on ESX 3i 3.5.0

[netsultan]

Heya there,

Let me explain this:

I have a Dell 2U Rack Serve, which I've recently installed VMware ESXi 3.5 (I didn't installed the newest version cos' it doesn't support 32-bit based processors), all was great till I wanted to mount an USB disk, it really is a HDD disk with some sort of cable capable to convert IDE to USB, I'll show you what are the outputs:

First, the fact that ESXi has detected the external disk, not only on the console, but in the VI client too as USB Storage Controller

1. cat /proc/scsi/usb-storage-0/3

Host scsi3: Usb-storage

Vendor: Unknown

Product: USB TO IDE

Serial Number: None

Protocol: Transparent SCSI

Transport: Bulk

GUID: 05e307020000000000000000

Attached: Yes

vmkadapter: vmhba33

Then I list the devices/partitions on the "usb" disk

1. ls /dev/disks/vmhba33*

vmhba33:0:0:0 vmhba33:0:0:1

when i try to mount the "usb" disk (which has an ext3 partition).....

mount /dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:1 /mnt/usb (or either vmhba33:0:0:0)

mount: use esxcfg-nas

mount -t ext3 /dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:1 /mnt/usb

mount: Mounting /dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:1 on /mnt/usb failed: No such device (WHAT!!!!!????)

And the most funny thing -

---

> ESXi doesn't have an umount command, I swear

Can you help me with this annoying issue? It's taking my life...

[RParker]

I will save you the trouble, ESX does NOT support USB devices.

What you do is mount the USB on your computer, and upload / download the files using the VI from your computer to the datastore. What you desribe will not work.

[netsultan]

RParker, if that is true, I see that is senseless for a platform that is designed for servers and High Availability to not support something as basic as USB. Why is not supported and, however, appears on a file in /proc? I don't understand that policy, really...