How to Copy ESXi VM to USB and Better Protect Business Continuity?

Many companies have selected VMware vSphere to deploy virtual environments for better IT flexibility and scalability. To ensure the safety and availability of virtual machines, backup and migration are often needed.

Some vSphere users would like to copy the ESXi VMs to external USB hard drive so the backup data is isolated from the production environment. If something is going wrong with VMs, users can recover them by importing the backup data to the ESXi host. In the event of severe damages such as ransomware attack or hardware failure, the backup data can be imported to the newly-established virtual environments.

If the new virtual environments are still deployed with ESXi hosts, the copied ESXi VM data would be easily imported but sometimes companies would change the virtualization solution so the ESXi VM data needs to be converted before imported to the heterogeneous environment.

Understanding the process of copying ESXi VM to external USB drive

If you just plug the USB drive into the ESXi host, it would be hard to make a complete backup of the VM because you can just mount the USB drive to certain VM and copy some files on it so if your goal is not transferring files between VMs, don’t directly plug the USB drive to the ESXi server.

Most VM data is stored in the virtual disks, so you need to download the vmdk files with the management tool. Generally, you should plug the USB drive into a Windows machine, then login to vCenter or VMware host client, and and then download the virtual disks to the USB drive.

If would like to connect the USB drive to a Linux machine, you might need to install some software for compatibility.

How to export and copy VMDK file to USB?

After you prepare the Windows machine and USB drive, you can use vCenter or VMware host client to export the vmdk file.

1. Plug the USB drive into the Windows machine

2. Login to vCenter

3. Locate the target VM

4. Right-click it > select Edit Settings

5. Click Hard Disk to expand it

6. Find the location of VMDK file in Disk File

7. Select the datastore of it

8. Locate the VMDK file using that directory

9. Check it > click Download

10. Copy it to the USB drive

The process of using VMware host client is similar.

How to export and copy OVF template to USB?

As discussed above, you can copy the VMDK file to USB drive because it contains most of the VM data so what if you would like to copy all the VM data? The missing part of VM data is the metadata and if you would like to export the whole VM, you need to export the OVF template.

1. Plug the USB drive into the Windows machine

2. Login to vCenter

3. Locate the target VM

4. Right-click it > select Export Template

5. Enter a name for it > click OK

6. Copy the downloaded OVF template to the USB drive

Vinchin’s solution for backing up ESXi to external USB hard drive

Both vCenter and VMware host client just provide simple file-level backup solutions and the availability of the backup data might influence later recovery jobs so it’s time to select a professional backup solution for ESXi VM.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery is an enterprise backup solution, supporting backing up ESXi 8/7/6/5. With a user-friendly web console, you can easily create backup jobs.

1. Select the ESXi VMs

2. Select the backup storage. You can add an external USB hard drive as the backup storage here but it is not recommended to do that. If you still would like to copy the VM backup external hard drive, see the suggestion in the next part

3. Select backup strategies like schedule, incremental backup, data compression, data encryption, etc.

4. Submit the job

For disaster recovery, Vinchin Backup Verification will verify the validation of VMware backup to make sure you can boot the VM after recovery; Instant Recovery can start a VM from its backup in 15 seconds.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery has been selected by thousands of companies and you can also start a 60-day full-featured free trial here. Also, contact us, leave your requirements, and then you will receive your tailored solution. We have established partnerships with reputable companies all over the world so if you would like to do a local business, you can select a local partner here.

Vinchin’s suggestion on backing up ESXi to external USB hard drive

The advantage of USB drive is its mobility. It can be plugged into a machine at any time and anywhere. However, enterprise backup jobs are often scheduled so it would be cumbersome into plug the USB drive to the backup server just before the backup job starts.

NAS is also a popular enterprise storage and easy to use. You can add a NAS as the backup storage in Vinchin Backup & Recovery and also mount the NAS on another Windows machine, so the backup job will be finished as scheduled and you can also copy the ESXi VM to the external USB hard drive at any time.

Backup data stored in the USB drive could restore some VMs but it can’t help restore the whole system. To quickly restart business system from a severe disaster, companies can establish an offsite datacenter and use Vinchin Backup & Recovery to create offsite backup copy to send the backup data back to the primary datacenter or directly reboot the production system in the secondary datacenter when needed.

If you just want to perform V2V migration, to avoid any problems during the conversion process, you can use Vinchin Backup & Recovery to add both virtualization platforms and then restore the VM backup on the other platform. It is supported for migrating VM between VMware vSphere, XenServer, XCP-ng, oVirt, RHV, OLVM, OpenStack, etc. for now.

Sum Up

VMware is a popular virtualization platforms for companies and to protect VMs on ESXi hosts or migrate ESXi VM to another host by copying ESXi VMs to the external USB hard drive. This post has introduced the ways to copy the virtual disk or VM template.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a professional VM backup and migration solution and can help you backup and migrate VM with better efficiency so don’t miss the free trial.