Locally attached tape backup through vm

[Spr1te]

Hello, I wanted to see if its possible to get a vmware host running Server 2008 to run its own backups to tape. I have a LSI1068E that attached to the motherboard then through SAS attaches to said tape drive.

I tried going to vSphere Client > Configuration > Advanced Settings > Edit > (place a checkmark to: "LSI Logic / Symbios Logic LSI 1068E") > Reboot ESXi 4.0u1 > Check again under 'advanced settings/edit'... it says "This device is running in passthrough mode"

I see a controller on the VM in device manager but can't seem to get it to map a drive letter.

Sidenote: also tried this process with all the USB controllers on list and rebooted, USB drive is not seen on Win08 either.

Alternatively: if not possible to make the drive viewable to the vm... can I make it a datastore for snapshots?

Message was edited by: Spr1te

[LarryBlanco2]

Just out of curiosity, you see the controller in the device mgr for the win08 system. Do you see the tape drive in the device mgr as well?

Thanks,

LB

[Spr1te]

Don't think so, just an entry in storage controllers: here I attached an image for you to see too

[jeevesm]

As far as I am aware, VMWare officially only supports tape drives attached to Adaptec SCSI cards. That doesn't mean you can't use drives connected to LSI cards. But, if it doesn't work, VMware doesn't support it.

Coming to your configuration, does VMKernel detect your tape drive as a SCSI device? Check vmkernel log. Is it listed in output of "esxcfg-mpath -l" command?

[Spr1te]

Just ran esxcfg-mpath -l.

I see HP Serial Attached SCSI Disk, Local TSSTcorp CD-ROM & Local USB Direct-Access listed.

HP SCSI is the local HDD and local USB is another seemingly failing venture I was trying to do the same with... but that is off-topic

[LarryBlanco2]

Have you tried the SAS card and tape drive combination in a physical box with windows loaded on it? Do the devices see each other?

If you go into the BIOS for the SAS controller. Does it show up as an attached device?

I just did VMDirectPath with a HP ML350 G6. I passed the USB EHCI down to a Windows 2K8 R2 VM. I plugged in the WD 2TB Mybook USB HD and everything worked perfectly. I get about 30MB/s transfer rates for 2GB+ file transfers. Works great for single server implementations and using Acronis to back up the machines.

Thanks,

Larry B.

[Spr1te]

I found http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esxi4-vmdirectpath.htm which showed me a missing step

I configured passthrough but never went to the VM to edit the machine and add the hardware there. Now that I've done that... it works like a charm

The tape drive did work on the physical box with Windows loaded on it w/o ESXi before.

I will be configuring the USB drive shortly and know that it will work. I concur with Acronis, its a good way to do backups on-top of snapshot backups with Veeam or vRanger for example.

Thanks for all your help!

[LarryBlanco2]

That's great! Glad I could be of some assistance.

LB

[LarryBlanco2]

Another thought is that most of the time Tape drives and raid cards do not get along very well. Usally they are going to want a non-raid storage controller to function. You may want to check compatability between the controller and said tape drive.

Larry