• EN

USB Storage over the Network!

  • 18 November 2023
  • 6 comments
  • 138 views
HunterLAFR
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Hi everyone!

I had a case during this week, and I wanted to share my experience / workaround with y’all.

I wanted to export a backup to an external drive, the VBR was a virtual machine, and no access to the Hypervisor to plug the USB and push it to the vm.

Now you may think, mount it somewhere and share it over the network as a shared folder…

I did, and was not working, some windows stuff that we were not allowed to share any unit, and was driving us crazy!

We did some research, and remembered that there was a way to share / mount remote USB Devices over the Network! now, time to give it a shot!

The idea is very straight forward, a Server machine, where the USB Devices is located at, and a client, to mount the remote resource as “local”.

The tool name is VIRTUALHERE

USB SERVER(Local USB Drive)→NETWORK→USB CLIENT“Remotely mounted USB Drive”

You simply download the Server and client, and execute them in the decided machines, couple of easy configs, and you are good to go, let me show you some screenshots.

 

VirtualHere Server running in the workstation out of the Vsphere environment.

 

Client running in the VBR Server
We right click into the device we would like to mount remotely - locally.

 

 

Boom! now shows the USB Drive like being plugged locally, its not!

 

VBR Sees the unit from the system, so now we are good to export the backup to it.

 

Some networking traffic going on, sending the files to the USB drive.
After the usage, we unmount the unit by right clicking and stop using the device.

 

 

Now we can see here at the “Server” that the unit has the files into it! worked perfectly.
Finally, you can see that the USB Drive is unmounted in the VBR server, all the files copied ok.

 

Hope you liked this little workaround, 

now, planning and thinking in future usages for this great tool.

Just wanted to highlight that I used the “Free” Version, which only allows to mount one USB Device at a time, there is a licensed version, but not used for now.
Also wanted to tell you that I have no relationship at all with them, just found it and wanted to share it with all of you.

cheers!

Luis F.- HunterLF - HunterLAFR - lfconsulting.org

6 comments

Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Very cool workaround for sure.  Interesting little program might need to test it. 😜

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
jos.maliepaard
Userlevel 5
Badge +7

thanks Luis. do you think this can be more of a ad-hoc solution or also as a more permanent tool?

@jos.maliepaard@masto.nu
HunterLAFR
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

thanks Luis. do you think this can be more of a ad-hoc solution or also as a more permanent tool?

Nice question, I used it as a workaround, but I see it benefitial if you dont want to open shared CIFs, and also you dont have access to the virtualized infa.

Also, if you get the licensed version, you can have multiple devices working at the same time over the network.

Finally, It can be someting very cool with a little bit of work for small / poor companies, to use the USB existing devices.

cheers.

Luis F.- HunterLF - HunterLAFR - lfconsulting.org
Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

thanks Luis. do you think this can be more of a ad-hoc solution or also as a more permanent tool?

Nice question, I used it as a workaround, but I see it benefitial if you dont want to open shared CIFs, and also you dont have access to the virtualized infa.

Also, if you get the licensed version, you can have multiple devices working at the same time over the network.

Finally, It can be someting very cool with a little bit of work for small / poor companies, to use the USB existing devices.

cheers.

Also great in a lab environment too for testing, playing, etc.  😁

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
RonV
Userlevel 5
Badge

I’d get in trouble if our corporate security department prohibits mounting/sharing external devices on the internal network and I download some tool that bypasses those restrictions….

HunterLAFR
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

I’d get in trouble if our corporate security department prohibits mounting/sharing external devices on the internal network and I download some tool that bypasses those restrictions….

it all depends on what you need to accomplish. 
this is a little workaround, but I see it very useful.

In my company, we are not allowed to use none-corporate USB Encrypted drives, for example.

cheers.

Luis F.- HunterLF - HunterLAFR - lfconsulting.org

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