2 USB Drives in Windows 2019 VM

[Jarvar]

I have Veam Agent for Windows Installed, and Windows Server backup which was both working before.
However, after switching hardware to a Supermicro 5019D-FTN4 .
Issue I am having is that backups don't seem to be running, can't find the USB Drives or they disappear for a while and the backup fails before they can be detected.
Any thoughts?
Please and thank you.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Hi,

how do you pass through the USB devices? As VM USB device or as VM Disk by using the respective block device?

Anything suspicious in the syslog/dmesg during the issues?

Also, what pveversion -v are you using?

 

[Jarvar]

I followed the tutoral. I think as a VM USB.
That could be the issue. For example, when I run a Veam backup, there is a moment where the drive disappears from inside the VM. For example, it shows in the device manager, disappears and then reappears, which could be causing a disruption in the backups. However, when I ran it on an Intel NUC, it didn't do this. So something must have changed in my settings.?

Looking in the syslog it shows the USB device connecting and disconnecting or being reset.
Thank you so muhch for your help.
PVE is 6.1-7

 

[t.lamprecht]

Looking in the syslog it shows the USB device connecting and disconnecting or being reset.

In the guest VMs syslog or the host one?

Hmm, you could try passing the whole USB disks block device throug, i.e., using SCSI not USB.

qm set VMID --scsi5 /dev/sdX

Where VMID is, well, your VMID and /dev/.. is the path to the USB disk from the point of view of the Proxmox VE host.
You can try to use lsblk to find the correct path.

This may not work as expected if you often connect/disconnect the USB drive, but not to sure from top of my head.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Oh, and after all, the USB drive could also really disconnect, i.e., maybe a HW issue (wonky cable/plug or the like)

 

[Jarvar]

I have been busy and have not had the chance to do all these things yet. However the Veam Agent for Windows Backup seems to be working now, and only 1 error a few days ago, other than that, backups have been running for the past 6 days.
The Windows Server Backup job however seems to be having problems still, but I will look into that later.
Is there a tutorial on how to add as a block device? I can look for one, but just wondering if there was something you recommended.
Thank you so much and I hope you are staying safe.
Did they have that conference in Italy in March? I hope everybody is okay.

 

[t.lamprecht]

I have a bit of downtime at work atm and decided to prepare a couple of USB drives with ISOs/tools for field work and emergencies. The previous posts in this sub on this topic give a lot of inspiration but also outline some problems, such as keeping the tools up to date and limited possiblity of improvisation.

As newer machines move away from USB-A I was wondering if anyone eschewed USB sticks entirely?

So far I have Ubuntu LTS, Clonezilla and a number of Win and Mac utilities (I work with digital signage devices mostly so YMMV).

This post seems a bit confusing, it's not clear what you're asking and how it relates to Proxmox VE or any other Proxmox project.
Also, please open a new thread if you want to ask a question, don't "spam" others..

 

[t.lamprecht]

I have been busy and have not had the chance to do all these things yet. However the Veam Agent for Windows Backup seems to be working now, and only 1 error a few days ago, other than that, backups have been running for the past 6 days.

I mean good to hear that your errors got less likely to happen.

Is there a tutorial on how to add as a block device? I can look for one, but just wondering if there was something you recommended.

It shouldn't be to hard to do, basically you want to check for a "stable" path for your usb pen drive - as /dev/sdX may change if other block devices get plugged in or on a host reboot; so we do not want to use that one.

One option is to use the /dev/disk/by-uuid/ paths, you should be able to find the respective out with the lsblk command:

lsblk -o +UUID

Then you can set this for an unused scsi disc, let's say that scsi5 is pretty sure unused in the VMs config (you can check in the webinterface too, there the config IDs are shown in parenthesis), so let's do:

qm set VMID --scsi5 /dev/disk/by-uuid/UUID

Just replace the UUID and VMID above. You then should remove the USB passthrough, so that they do not conflict each others.
This change needs a full shutdown/start cycle for the VM to get applied correctly.

I suggest to first try this out with some USB pen drive or the like, to see if it works in general on your system - note I mostly wrote this from top of my head, so don't blindly follow it

Thank you so much and I hope you are staying safe.

Thank you, all well for now. Wish you the same!

Did they have that conference in Italy in March?

Sorry, which conference to you mean exactly?