how to find usb storage devices on esxi server?

Question

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 ?

Solution

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

Comments

[jfmessier]

I also got some feedback fro friends that it is not possible with ESXi 4, but would be with ESXi 4.1. But for now, we will use the "SCP" method.