Hello,

I want to run a Virtual machine using Hyper-V and be able to support and use the LTO Tape Drives, which are using SCSI. I want to create a VM of Server 2003 on a Server 2008 machine in order to access the LTO Tape Drives. Will Hyper-V support this? How well does it work?

This is my plan: I want to create a VM using Hyper-V with Server 2003. From there, I want to add and make sure that the LTO Tape Drive (using SCSI) can be used and accessed, and allow us to recover data from a tape. 

• Edited by DCap88 Wednesday, October 17, 2012 8:00 PM

Hyper-V does not support passing through devices like this.

If your VM requires some special driver to interface with an dcontrol the tape library through the SCSI controller, it must be on a physical server.

AFAIK only Xen / XenServer can pass through a physical PCI device (without any emulation layer) to allow a VM to have total physical control over such a piece of hardware.

Why is it that programs like VMWare allow for the use of these Tape Drives, but Hyper-V does not? I made a thread on the VMWare forums asking about using LTO drives, and they allow it by use of the general SCSI drive adapter (when creating the image)

"allow use" and "support" are vastly different concepts here.

Presenting an LTO tape drive to a VM as a passthrough disk can be done - and your resulting experience can be good or bad depending on the manufacturer of the drive.

However, if the LTO drive has special software that controlls the tape drive in some way - that special software will not work.

I would be very interested in seeing the proposed solution that you have found in the other forums.  As my experience with ESX does not give what I would classify as 'support'.  But then my expectations might be different from yours.

Hi Brian,

Here is the thread from the forum as I stated above: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/422078

There are many issues in that link.

One was simply the mention to try "generic SCSI device" and that it might work - did you try it?  What was the result?  Does it really work?

And that is a VMWare Workstation thread.  I was focusing on ESX which parallels Hyper-V.  Hyper-V and Workstation are not equivalent.

You continued to ask if there is a different way of using LTO drivers in a VM vs on a physical machine.  SO I am guessing that it is not working, as I would expect as the drivers are expecting to own the SCSI device and directly control the SCSI controller itself - which is generally not possible in a VM.

The other issue in that thread is that Hyper-V and Workstation cannot run on the same machine at the same time.  That is totally true.  As the existanace of Hyper-V blocks the custom Workstation drivers from working and vice versa.

At the root, it appears that you are attempting to recover files from an LTO tape drive.  And for some reason you cannot use Server 2008 (R2 or R2 SP1).  I can only guess this is due to a driver signing issue and the SCSI driver - as I have similar problems (i didn't with 2008).  BTW - Server 2012 includes a way to work around this driver signing issue again.

I am also assuming that you have one server that has the SCSI support to attach the drive.  And that now has Hyper-V on it and is running other VMs.

Personally, I would try to exclusively use the Server for a bit, or find a workstation that you can add the SCSI card to.

Brian,

The goal is to recover data from an LTO drive, I was told to clone the system, format, put Server 2003 on it, get the data, format and put the cloned 2008 back on. I figured just creating a VM would make this 100 times easier. As for the Tape Drive, it seems that the program does not work well with Server 2008, but works perfectly with server 2003. The device is connected via SCSI.

If the System is only a Hyper-V Server, why not Export the VMs, whack it to 2003, restore, whack it back to 2008x and then import the VMs back?

Cloning and installing are just about equal pain and most likely re-installing is faster (depending on whatever else is installed).

Unfortunately, linking a tape drive to a VM is not a universally supported or designed for scenario.  Primarily because it is a technically complex problem with a dependency on a thrid party and how they build their drivers.

Again, if the LTO can be presented to the VM as a "drive" or a passthrough disk it could work.  But beyond that you can't emulate a SCSI device and how any piece of software might interact with it and guarantee success.

Just a note on the discussion here:

With Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Microsoft introduced Virtual Fiber Channel. So if you have a tape library which uses fiber channel you can now add this to a virtual machine.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831413.aspx

Thanks Thomas.

I had not thought of the Virtual Fiber Channel as a possibility to pass-through a tape library.  Interesting possibility.

But it is hardware specific.

Brian,

We currently are not running any Virtual Machines, I was only going to create one with Server 2003 and use it just for this instance. Even though this may be the easiest route, it is probably the least probable as you are explaining to me. Also, we are using the HP LTO Tape drive, so even with a well known company brand like HP the chance of getting this work can be minimal? 

Seems our best option is just to figure out how the hell to get this HP LTO tape program to work with Server 2008.

Thomas, 

I believe we are only using the LTO Tape drive via SCSI for connection. 

• Edited by DCap88 Thursday, October 18, 2012 6:10 PM

It all depends if the scenario is one that is actaully designed for.

And don't assume that the name or size of company has any bearing on the scenraio in which you want to apply their software.

If what you are attempting to do was not designed for and tested, your mileage will vary.

LTO in VMware is plug and play in my experience. I have used them on 3.1, 4.1 and 5.1. Plug it in, goto settings of the VM and add a virtual SCSI controller. As you add the controller it will show you a list of available SCSI devices, and you select the one you want from the list. Save, fire it up and it works.

I am actually on here trying to find the same answer for Hyper V and it seems to be a no. I was going to use my backup VM as a test of hyper v but I guess I won't be doing that.

• Edited by cwhicks3 Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:35 AM

Thomas you are right about this.