VMware ESXI mounting drives

PWR_USR · 13 Nov 2015 at 21:57

Hey yall,

I've just set up a vmware ESXI server as a home lab style setup. i have a couple of windows virtual machines set up now (windows server 2012, windows 7).
i have a couple of hard drives full of old movies and general storage that i want to mount to the windows virtual machine so i can share it across my network, however i cant find any way of doing this without formatting the drives to turn them into vmdk devices.
is this possible? am i missing something?

Thanks

PWR_USR · 13 Nov 2015 at 22:27

so is there a good way to import around 2TB of movies, general storage etc?

PWR_USR · 13 Nov 2015 at 23:28

so ESXI cant access a drive that already has data on it?
seems like they missed something there :/

PWR_USR · 17 Nov 2015 at 11:38

ecksmen said:
Not really; generally speaking ESXi was built to be clustered; VMs are designed to be portable (DRS). Binding a VM to a physical device (such as a pre-formatted volume) prevents easy migration such as vmotion / cold-migration and IMO should be avoided when ever possible (being lazy isn't a good reason).

makes sense when you put it like that, i just thought there would be a way to convert a disk to a virtual disk without having to format and lose data.
create a virtual store using a folder, or something along those lines

however i have now taken the plunge and copied the data over the network into a new VMDK.

i did try to go down the RDM rout but the option was grayed out, possibly the drive or controller isnt compatable.

PWR_USR · 17 Nov 2015 at 12:58

OK so it is possible just not on the free licence.
i'm still learning a lot about the different vmware products and what each package has to offer.

the home lab setup is just so i can learn more about virtualisation on a larger (business) scale.