The disk archiving unit, formerly known as the RXDA or recovery archive unit, is based on four eSATA-connected drives in a single enclosure. The disk archiving unit can be used with Unitrends Backup on VMware and the Unitrends physical appliance. See the following for more information about the disk archiving unit:
Benefits of the disk archiving unit for a physical appliance include:
• | Support for 3.5” SATA hard disk drives, up to 4TB |
• | Support for eSATA transfer speed up to 3Gbps |
While the disk archiving solution for a physical appliance offers many benefits, the following restrictions and limitations apply:
• | All drives within the disk archiving unit that are attached to a single system must have equal capacity. Drives may be of varying capacity if they are attached to different systems. |
• | All drives within the disk archiving unit that are attached to a single system are treated as one logical volume. Data is written across all drives in the logical volume. Once you archive to a logical volume, these drives must be treated as a single entity. |
Warning! Removing a drive from the logical volume corrupts archived data.
• | Data that has been archived on 3Ware cannot be restored via the disk archiving unit. |
Warning! Be sure to unmount the disk archiving unit before detaching it from the backup system or before powering it off while attached to the system. Failure to unmount the unit properly may result in data corruption.
Unitrends Backup on VMware archiving uses the SAS Controller 9211-4i, along with an external SAS bracket. You must purchase these parts to connect the disk archiving unit. For details on procuring these parts, see KB 3332. This section provides instructions for creating the ESXi passthrough for the disk archiving unit.
Note: You can only connect one virtual machine to a passthrough at a time.
1 | Log onto the ESXi server through vSphere: |
• | Go to VMware, open the vSphere client, and connect to your host. |
• | On the Login window, enter the IP address / Name, User name, and Password, then click Login. |
2 | Configure the device for the passthrough: |
• | Click on the appropriate device from the list at the bottom of the window. |
• | Select Advanced Settings in the Hardware column. The Passthrough Configuration window lists all available passthrough devices. |
• | Click Configure Passthrough… in the top right corner. You see the Mark devices for passthrough window. |
• | Check the box associated with the device (the LSI 2004 box) and click OK. You see a message to restart your computer. |
If there is another controller that uses the same LSI chip set, you may see more than one in the list and you must determine the appropriate one to select. For more information, go to the VMware Knowledgebase.
Warning! Be sure to select the appropriate device or you could lose access to the ESXi server.
3 | Restart your computer: |
• | Shut down all virtual machines before you restart. |
• | Right-click the Host IP in the upper left part of the window and select Enter Maintenance Mode. You see a message to confirm the maintenance mode. |
• | Click Yes to confirm maintenance mode. |
• | Use your normal process to reboot. |
4 | Verify the passthrough: |
• | Log back into vSphere. |
• | Click the Configuration tab. |
• | Click Advanced Settings under the Hardware column. Your device is listed in the main portion of the window. |
5 | Add the passthrough device to the virtual machine: |
• | Power down the virtual machine. |
• | Right click on the virtual machine and click Edit Settings. You see the Virtual Machine Properties window. |
• | Click Add. You see the Add Hardware window. |
• | Click on PCI Device in the selection window and click Next. |
• | Select the device from the drop-down list to specify the physical PCI/PCIe device for connection. A new window displays the device. |
• | Click Finish to complete the passthrough. You see a list of all devices on the Virtual Machine Properties window, including the device you added for the passthrough, such as “New PCI Device (adding).” |
• | Click OK. |
6 | Reboot the virtual machine. Once complete, you are ready to archive. |
7 | View the device in Unitrends: |
• | Log in to Unitrends. |
• | Go to Archive > Media. The device you added is listed under Archive Media. See To view connected media for more information. |
The disk archiving unit has four eSATA ports that correspond to the four archive drive slots. To connect to the Unitrends physical appliance, the unit may be attached to a single backup system or to multiple systems simultaneously. This configuration allows archiving to occur from one or more systems.
The disk archiving unit is attached to a backup system using an eSATA cable. If your backup appliance has a multi-port NIC(s), you can attach more than one archive drive to that appliance using multiple eSATA cables. Note that if you attach multiple drives to one Unitrends appliance, the backup system treats all attached archive drives as one logical volume, writing data across the entire set.