In this (HD) video I’ll show you a new vSphere 4.1 feature regarding configuring USB Device Pass-through from an ESX/ESXi Host to a Virtual Machine. You can configure a virtual machine to use USB devices that are connected to an ESX/ESXi host where the virtual machine is running. The connection is maintained even if you migrate the virtual machine using vMotion.
When you attach a USB device to a physical host, the device is available only to virtual machines that run on that host. The device cannot connect to virtual machines that run on another host in the datacenter. A USB device is available to only one virtual machine at a time. When a device is connected to a powered-on virtual machine, it is not available to connect to other virtual machines that run on the host. When you remove the active connection of a USB device from a virtual machine, it becomes available to connect to other virtual machines that run on the host. host.
When you migrate a virtual machine with attached USB devices away from the host to which the devices are connected, the devices remain connected to the virtual machine. However, if you suspend or power off the virtual machine, the USB devices are disconnected and cannot reconnect when the virtual machineis resumed. The device connections can be restored only if you move the virtual machine back to the host to which the devices are attached.
