Use USB as Datastore on ESXi 6.5

SSH or use ESXi Shell to your ESXi server. Use ls /dev/disks to list your disks and disk ID. Stop and disable the USB arbitrator service (either via command line or via GUI). Unless otherwise noted, do not include the brackets [ ] as part of the command.

Run the following commands:

  1. partedUtil mklabel /vmfs/devices/disks/[DISK ID] gpt
  2. partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/[DISK ID]
  3. eval expr $(partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/[DISK ID] | tail -1 | awk '{print $1 " \\* " $2 " \\* " $3}') - 1
  4. [[VALUE WILL BE RETURNED HERE IN OUTPUT OF COMMAND ABOVE]]
  5. partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/[DISK ID] gpt "1 2048 [VALUE FROM RESULT ABOVE] AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0"
  6. vmkfstools -C vmfs6 -S USB-Datastore /vmfs/devices/disks/[DISK ID]:1

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