HP MicroServer Gen8 (G1610T) and passthrough support

[D3fc0n]

Hi all

After searching for hours and days, I did not find an answer to this question:

I have a HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 G1610T (Celeron), running a free ESXi with HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 6.0 U2.

In the BIOS, VT-d is enabled.

Under Configuration->Advanced Settings I see the message 'Host does not support passthrough configuration'.

I would like to attach an external USB3-Disk to my Microserver and mount it to a specific Ubuntu-Server-VM to backup some data.

Is there any solution to do this or is this a limitation of the hardware I have?

Best regards, Raoul

[Davoud Teimouri]

I guess, this is limitation of your hardware and you can't attach USB devices to your VM.

[D3fc0n]

Is this a 'guess' or a fact?

[Davoud Teimouri]

That's fact. You can't use Pass-Thru

[glenngahnstedt]

The CPU does not support direct i/o (PCI devices etc) as you already know, but if the USBARBITRATOR (/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator start) is running, you should be able to add a USB controller to the VM and then later add a USB disk.

I have done this myself on a MS Gen8 with that same CPU and can confirm this works