is this possible? copy vmdks to USB Hardrive

[escapem2]

hi

I have 1 Vsphere server wit 3 VMs configued local storage now due some changes I wanto copy the files to a USB Hard Drive since for me is faster that network I mean network by using a software like VMX Explorer which creates a Full Backup.

is there a way to connect my USB External Hard Drive and copy my VMDKs?

/vmfs/volumes/vmwareesx1:storage1

-rw----- 1 root root 2.2G Mar 25 13:04 replica-36223bac-be94-440f-ac4dcl1-delta.vmdk

-rw----- 1 root root 379 Mar 21 07:05 replica-36223bac-be94-440f-ac4dcl1.vmdk

-rw------- 1 root root 1.0G Mar 21 07:04 Supervisors25-4f5d846d.vswp

-rw------- 1 root root 8.5K Mar 21 07:05 Supervisors25.nvram

-rw------- 1 root root 75 Mar 20 12:46 Supervisors25.vmsd

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.8K Mar 21 07:04 Supervisors25.vmx

-rw------- 1 root root 268 Mar 21 07:04 Supervisors25.vmxf

-rw-rr 1 root root 62K Mar 24 11:59 vmware.log

thanks a lot

[weinstein5]

Not directly to the ESX host - you will have to connect it to a client machine and then use something like WinSCP to copy to the USB disk -

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[escapem2]

I will be using VM Explorer to backup my VMs since it is free for full backups

http://www.trilead.com/

any other similar tool? I mean someone else has used any similar tool to backup full VMs for free

[asatoran]

any other similar tool? I mean someone else has used any similar tool to backup full VMs for free

There's the ghettoVCB scripts that many people are using.

The issue for you is that ESX(i) does not directly work with USB drives so you need to attach the drive to your workstation (or USB-over-IP device or similar,) at which point you can copy using any tool you wish (such as WinSCP, as suggested.) But because the drive is connected to your workstation, then you're still copying "over the network." So if you say that your network copy speed is inadequate, a USB drive will still not help you. You might be able to do some sort of PCI passthrough with a USB card, but I've not done it and I don't remember reading any post that said they were successful. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

[AntonVZhbankov]

With Veeam FastSCP.

---

MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[AndreTheGiant]

If you have ESX (and not ESXi) you can mount the USB in the service console and use cp command.

But...

you can't see NTFS partition and VFAT partition are limited to 2 GB...

so you have to format the disk with ext2 or ext3

And...

cause service console has a few resource it still take a lot time...

Andre

[jkumhar75]

The best option for copying the files on the USB disk is to install the Veeam FastSCP on to the workstation and connect the USB disk to workstation and copy the vmdk files to USM disk.

MCSE, VCP 310 & VCP 410.

[Aceh_King]

Why not use vConvertor!