USB disk drive hotplug question

Nov 15, 2024
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I'm new to Proxmox VE after migrating from VMware ESXi, I'm running PVE 8.2.7.

TL;DR: How does Proxmox and the virtual machine behave if I unplug a USB disk drive without unmounting properly on Windows Server despite being set with Quick removal policy? What are the chances of the VM or node crashing?

I have a Windows Server 2016 virtual machine acting as a file server to which I attach a USB disk drive to have a quick file backup using a simple utility, not the built-in Windows Server Backup, for emergencies. When running Windows Server on ESXi, I've occasionally swapped the drive with another similar drive with no issues, even disconnecting the device with the drive mounted on Windows, as sometimes Windows doesn't want to unmount it despite there's nothing using the drive.

When testing Proxmox, I saw unplugging and plugging a drive behaving the same as ESXi which I appreciate (unplug the drive and then plug another drive and it shows up on the Windows guest right away), but I have a doubt on what could happen if I unplug the drive while still showing on Windows, specially after reading the Proxmox wiki on hotplug (Proxmox Wiki on USB Hotplug on Windows Guests), maybe because I didn't/forgot test that.

How does Proxmox and the virtual machine behave if I unplug a USB disk drive without unmounting properly on Windows Server despite being set with Quick removal policy? What are the chances of the VM or node crashing?
 

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