AnywhereUSB and External Disks

Hello,

I’m looking for a valid opinion wether AnywhereUSB supports well USB disks.

This is my scenario:

I want to virtualize SBS2008, and for the moment i won’t have any 3rd party software for backup. I will use the backup software provided in the OS. In SBS the supported backup devices are USB disks, and i would like to keep myself within the supported scenarios as much as I can.

So, i read the whitepaper on using AnywhereUSB with VMWareESX, and the only line i can find on this is ‘supports storage devices’, but as far as I could understand, AnywhereUSB is mostly for other types of USB devices.

It would be pretty nice if USB disks are well supported…otherwise I won’t go for a virtualized solution.

Thanks in advance for advices.

Hello,

Technically, USB disks (“mass storage devices” like USB flash drives and USB hard drives) are compatible.

Realistically, I personally don’t think they are a good fit for the AnywhereUSB for a backup solution because the AnywhereUSB is a USB 1.1 hub with a realistic transfer rate of ~4 megabits/second. So, while the backup will work, it will be very slow. This presumes that the USB disks are USB 2.0, which all modern ones are. I guess it depends on exactly how much data you need to backup, and how often it needs to be backed up.

In summary, if you just need to periodically copy/paste a small number of files from/to a USB flash drive or USB hard drive, then that should work fine. But for a backup solution, it’s not really ideal.

Hello Jeremy,

Based on the specs on the image attached, would you say that it would support what I inted to do?

The usage is for daily backups…

Thanks

Message was edited by: dbarroco

This scenario will work but it will be slower than expected since the AnywhereUSB is a USB 1.1 hub.

Mass storages such as hard disks and pen drive are not compatible with AUB, thus it is not recommended to use them.

refer to KBase article

http://www.digi.com/support/kbase/kbaseresultdetl?id=3039