sglee
asked on
Hyper-V Passthrough Support for USB Drives
Hi,
I have Windows Server 2016 running HyperV. One of the virtual machines is SBS2011. When SBS2011 was in stand-alone server, I used to have a 2TB external USB hard drive as backup destination.
Now since SBS2011 is a VM, I can't really attach any physical external USB HD directly to it. So it appears that my option is either connect the USB HD to HyperV server and set up a share (\\HyperV\SBSBackup) or (2) set it up via passthrough (run DiskMgmt.msc in HyperV, select ext USB, make it offline, edit VM settings and add it in SCSI Controller).
To continue the same kind of WIndows Server Backup, I think I need to go with (2). Actually there are two more ext. usb drives used in different types of backups.
Is there any harm or potential problems in attaching multiple USB HDs to a single VM thru USB passthrough?
If that is the case, what would you suggest?
Thanks.
I have Windows Server 2016 running HyperV. One of the virtual machines is SBS2011. When SBS2011 was in stand-alone server, I used to have a 2TB external USB hard drive as backup destination.
Now since SBS2011 is a VM, I can't really attach any physical external USB HD directly to it. So it appears that my option is either connect the USB HD to HyperV server and set up a share (\\HyperV\SBSBackup) or (2) set it up via passthrough (run DiskMgmt.msc in HyperV, select ext USB, make it offline, edit VM settings and add it in SCSI Controller).
To continue the same kind of WIndows Server Backup, I think I need to go with (2). Actually there are two more ext. usb drives used in different types of backups.
Is there any harm or potential problems in attaching multiple USB HDs to a single VM thru USB passthrough?
If that is the case, what would you suggest?
Thanks.
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@Cliff
"The issue you'll have is that the VM *really* won't like it if you unplug any USB drives" --> Since there are Week1 and Week2 USB HDs that we rotate on a weekly basis, we have to disconnect & connect these USB drives. So it sounds like passthrough is not a good solution.
"There are USB-over-Ethernet products" --> I will need to look into that option.
@McKnife
"you should attach the drives to the host" --> I agree. I just curious about "USB Passthrough" method in addition to Veeam or Altaro backup.
I think I will just attach external USB hard drives to a workstation PC and create a share like "\\ComputerName\SharedFold
"The issue you'll have is that the VM *really* won't like it if you unplug any USB drives" --> Since there are Week1 and Week2 USB HDs that we rotate on a weekly basis, we have to disconnect & connect these USB drives. So it sounds like passthrough is not a good solution.
"There are USB-over-Ethernet products" --> I will need to look into that option.
@McKnife
"you should attach the drives to the host" --> I agree. I just curious about "USB Passthrough" method in addition to Veeam or Altaro backup.
I think I will just attach external USB hard drives to a workstation PC and create a share like "\\ComputerName\SharedFold
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ASKER
It was good to know that plugging & unplugging USB drives set up as pass thru. I will just use Network Share" method like \\HyperV\SharedFolder(off external USB HD) provided that Windows server backup can perform incremental backups.
Cannot do incrementals to a network share.
ASKER
"Cannot do incrementals to a network share." --> That is what I read. But are you sure about that?
Yes.
ASKER
So if it take 5 hours to perform a backup, for the sake of argument, it would take 5 hours each and every time? In other words, each time Windows Server Backup runs, it will overwrite the previous backup? At the end of the day, I only have 1 day worth of data?
When backing up to a network location, yes.
1 shutdown or suspend the vm
2 backup to usb
3 resume/restart the vm