Is there a way to connect an external USB HD to my host?

[vite1]

I have a Dell Power Edge 2850 which I have my ESXi host installed on: I was wondering is there anyway to connect and utilize a USB HD on my system. I wanted to be able to use it as backup. Can I get any of my guests to see it if I can't get my host? I'm not using a SAN. I just have the ESXi host installed on this server where I have a small partition for my host and the remainder 800GB for my VM guests. This is just a test environment.

Thanks

[lmonaco · Accepted solution]

It's not supported. VMware recommends AnywhereUSB.

[weinstein5]

As the other poster indicated ESX and ESXi does not support the access to USB disk drives - the only to make it accessible to the VMs via an IP based USB hib like Digi's USBAnywhere -

[guyrleech]

You can mount a FAT32 formatted USB hard drive in ESX (it automatically creates the /dev nodes and you just use the regular "mount" command) but this does not work in ESXi, primarily as it does not appear to create the /dev nodes although it does see the arrival of the USB device if you look in the logs.

[vite1]

thank you Imonaco

[vite1]

Thanks Weinstein5

[vite1]

Is there a way to integrate a command line console with the ESXi server?

Thanks for your help as well guyrleech.

[guyrleech]

Unsupported, but it can be done:

SSH can be enabled too but again is unsupported.

[weinstein5]

There actually is a virtual appliance you can download form vmware called the RCLI - Remote CLI - this will give you a service console command line access to your ESXi host -

Don't forget to award points for answers that you found helpful or correct by marking the answer helpful or correct

[vite1]

Thanks Weinstein5. Do you think once I'm in by command line that I would be able to mount this USB drive?

[vite1]

Thanks guyrleech, I will check this out.

[vite1]

Weinstein5,

About the award points thing, I haven't read up on that with this discussion board and all. I clicked on helpful answer or correct answer I think. I guess I better read up on this as I still haven't had anyone reply to my previous problems. Thanks again for your help.

[vite1]

Are you able to use the CLI client on ESXi and mount a usb HD connected to the host machine? What is the best Doc on using the CLI client?