Configuring a virtual machine to access a tape drive

kaplan71 · 01-07-2016, 08:17 AM

Hello --

We are running Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V as the host system, and the current virtual machine, or guest, operating system is Linux Mint. The server on which both are located has a locally attached LTO-5 tape drive.

We need to do a tar backup of a remote UNIX filesystem to the tape device, and the plan is to do it from the virtual machine.

I wanted to know if this can be done, and what steps and commands would accomplish this.

Thanks.

Ser Olmy · 01-07-2016, 11:05 AM

Your best bet would be to export the tape drive as a raw iSCSI target.

While Windows Server 2012 does come with iSCSI target functionality, raw devices are not supported. You could try the StarWind Tape Redirector, which is free (as in beer).

jefro · 01-11-2016, 04:48 PM

Some ideas maybe.

Wonder if using NFS on 2012 server and something like a rsync or even just tar to it.

There are still some Services for Unix in windows so you may not need a vm to access it. Well, really you can do all you want with other tools too in windows to access unix.

Even stuff like deltacopy or whatever it is called now may work.