Tell me more ×
Server Fault is a question and answer site for professional system and network administrators. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have just installed VMWARE ESXi5 on a physical server with 2 hard drives. OS on one, Virtual Machines will be on the other. I have the vmdk's I want to use on a usb disk. How do I copy them from the USB disk on to the local disk???

share|improve this question

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Simplest, most supported and safest way is to plug the USB disk in to your own computer, and then use VMWare console to access the datastore browser and upload the files there.

See here for a step-by-step guide.

share|improve this answer
1  
This is safer ignore my answer please. – SuperBOB Mar 12 '12 at 11:06
Thanks Simon.. this is going to tame 340mins though :( (4 to copy) The usb disk is an NTFS formatted SATA disk sitting in a HDD cradle hence connecting over usb. I could connect it to a sata cable internal, would it then be possible to copy the files across? – Christian Mar 12 '12 at 11:57
1  
VMWare may not see the NTFS formatted drive. I would just let the copy run, or risk having a makeshift solution fail and take even longer to fall back on the usual method. – Bart Silverstrim Mar 12 '12 at 12:26
tried several other methods such as installing the ntfs-3g driver but all roads lead back to this answer... so shall let it run :( Many thanks – Christian Mar 12 '12 at 12:50
.....and its finally complete. 4 hrs later :) Thanks again Simon – Christian Mar 12 '12 at 17:05
up vote 0 down vote

SSH onto the ESXi Server - and use the command line. You can enable SSH access from vSphere.

e.g cp /usb/path/* /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/

share|improve this answer
It's an NTFS formatted disk and when I plug it into the ESXi server, /usb/ doesnt exist. – Christian Mar 12 '12 at 11:54
up vote 0 down vote

enable ssh/scp access and then use scp client [like winscp] to copy the files.

how to enable it: here.

share|improve this answer
Thanks pQd. SSH enabled but I now need a way to copy from an NTFS USB disk to the local datastore. – Christian Mar 12 '12 at 11:55
@Christian you can copy it to another machine and then scp over the network. – pQd Mar 12 '12 at 12:13

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.