I have a virtual machine that runes backup software to backup all my files and servers.
The backup software backs up the data to portable esata hard drives.
I have two portable hard drive attached to this VM. These hard drives are directly connected to the host Esata ports. I have created two RDM for this purpose.
One of the hard drives does not get unpluged from the server on a reguler basses.
the other hard drive rotates on a weekly basses for off site backup.
When I rotate the drive I:
- edit the VM and remove the hard drive that I want to rotate.
- then go to configure and detach the drive
-power off the drive and unplug from server
-put the other drive in and power it on
- go to configure and mount drive
- edit VM and add the RDM back on to the server.
This process works grate until I restart the host. At this point the name of the drive changes and the current RDM fails.
The VM will not power on until I remove the RDM that has a new name. the only way to fix the RDM is to make a new RDM pointing to the new file name.
The hard drive that did not rotate work fine it is just the drive that rotated that has a problem
vmkfstools.pl -server 192.168.0.2 -username -password -r /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____BUFFALO_External_HDD_00______________________________6VPH23V5 /vmfs/volumes/4e9d8d19-e80d8d58-f4cc-5ef3fca652f6/RDMs/RDMBuffPort.vmdk -a lsilogic
Is there a way around this problem? if I keep a RDM for each drive I can not use the RDM for the new drive until I restart the server. the VM want to keep using the current RDM until the server is restarted.
Is there a way of update the drive name to the poper drive with out restarting the host or disturbing the other VM on this computer?
Is there a way when the VM is powers done to remove the truble some drive and add the proper one when the VM powers back on?
all drives in the rotation plug into the same port on the host server.
I am using ESXI 5. I currently only have one host.
