How can i copy the ISO or data from USB attached to ESXI into data store

[mirror51]

I have standalone ESXI server 5.5

Now my network speed is very less around 300KBPS because many wireless connections with LAN.

Now i want to copy existing VM or ISO which are in my USB drive which is NTFS formatted.

If i join the USB to server then i can join that to any VM but i am not able to detect that in my dataastore because i don't want to format it.

I have TB of VM to copy to data store and i can't upload via data store browser.

What is the best way to use USB drive as datastore so that i can copy it to SATA datastore and then remove USB.

I cant copy via network because of speed issue. so data has to be trasfered directly from within Esxi server

Thanks

[DavoudTeimouri]

Hi friend,

NTFS is not supported, just you can use USB with FAT16.

Which disk type is installed on your host?

BR

[mirror51]

Ok i can make usb as fat 16.

On my server i have sata drives attached and they are currently used as data stores fomratted as vfm

[DavoudTeimouri]

Here is some links for mount USB on ESXi server:

Jim's Notes: vmware usb mount esxi5

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/03/how-to-access-usb-storage-in-esxi-shell.html

But you have better options like iSCSI.

[mirror51]

can it detect fat32 or i have to use fat16

Also can i format my 500GB usb drive as Fat 16

[DavoudTeimouri]

You can't format a 500GB driver as FAT16, it's not supported by that.

Maximum partition size which supported by FAT16 is 2GB.

[mirror51]

then whats the use of using USB device this way if i can't do it on big drives.

Is there any other way of achieving what i want without using network

[peetz]

You could use USB passthrough to connect the USB drive to a Windows VM that runs on the host.

Then run VMware Converter in the VM to upload the VM(s) that are stored on the USB disk to the host. If they are in OVF format you can also just import them using the vSphere Client.

For ISO files you would just upload them to the host via the datastore browser in vSphere Client.

In any case you would then only use the host internal network which should be really fast.

Andreas

[King_Robert]

mount the USB in a windows based VM because windows has NTFS partition support.

also assign the datastore volume to windows VM through ISCSI initiator and copy the VM from from USB to the datastore.

[mirror51]

also assign the datastore volume to windows VM through ISCSI initiator and copy the VM from from USB to the datastore.

Can you please tell me how can i assign datastore to VM. i didn't get that

[peetz]

I don't get that either ...

You could passthrough the whole disk (as RDM) to the VM, and re-export it from the VM as an iSCSI-target for the ESXi host.

But this doesn't help, because the host can only read VMFS and FAT16, and Windows cannot read/write VMFS.