I am sorry if this may sound a little silly....
I have VMware vCenter controlling 3 sites all using ESXi 5.1. HQ, site 1 and site 2.
Currently I am using Acronis to perform backup to a disk then using Backup Exec to "copy" the backup to tape for offsite storage.
- Backup exec also perform other backup tasks to tape
- Backup exec backup the "Acronis backup" as files to tape
One of the issues I have is that I cannot backup VMs on either site 1 or site 2 due to the small bandwidth. only 1 VM per site but estimated transfer over WAN is over 300 hrs.
However, I have 2x ESXi hosts on both site 1 and site 2 (total of 4 ESXi hosts with local storage only).
I have created "cold" clones during the quiet times. The clones are stored on the 2nd ESXi host per site.
I had tried plugging the USB storage device but from vCenter, I do not know how to "mount" it as a data store....
How can I plug in a USB storage device to the ESXi hosts, mount it as a data store so that I can "clone or copy" the clone to the USB storage ?
I would then bring the USB device to HQ, mount it and then try the backup to tape.
Thanks for any advise, greatly appreciated.