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jfmessier
Asked: 2010-12-14 08:04:00 +0800 CST

how to find usb storage devices on esxi server?

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We are looking at temporarily mounting an external hard disk on USB to an ESX1 v4 server from VMware. In /var/log/messages, we see the messages of the device being connected, but we cannot figure out the actual name of the device (/dev/???) to actually mount so we can retrieve the files ?

files usb vmware-esx device

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is possible to do but no simple task unless you have a server that supports passthrough for USB http://vstorage.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/usb-passthrough-in-vsphere-4-1/

    Any easier approach may be to hook the USB up to a Windows Desktop and transfer the files via SCP, after enabling file transfer in the ESXi Console using a program such as http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html

    or VSphere, File transfer will work if you don't want to "hack" esxi

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  2. Did you add the USB controller AND the USB device to the guest? If not, that's probably the issue.

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