Hello,
I would like to set up a USB stick (Kingston DataTraveller Max Type-A 256GB) on my Raspberry Pi 4 8GB as a datastore for my VMs. Currently I am using an NFS share on my Synology NAS for this. I have also tested other sticks, even the same type stick I boot the Raspberry PI from, but none of the sticks show up in storage management.

Does anyone have a tip for me on how to configure this?

Here are the steps you can follow to set up your Kingston DataTraveller Max Type-A 256GB USB stick as a datastore for your VMs on Raspberry Pi 4:

Connect the USB stick to the Raspberry Pi 4 and wait for it to be detected.
Open a terminal window on the Raspberry Pi and run the command sudo fdisk -l to list all connected storage devices. Make a note of the device name of the USB stick (e.g. /dev/sda).
Run the command sudo parted /dev/sda to start the partition editor for the USB stick. Replace /dev/sda with the correct device name if it's different.
In the parted command prompt, enter mklabel gpt to create a new GPT partition table on the USB stick.
Next, create a new partition on the USB stick by entering mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%.
Once the partition is created, exit the parted prompt by entering quit.
Format the newly created partition as an ext4 file system by running the command sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1. Replace /dev/sda1 with the correct partition name if it's different.
Create a new directory to use as a mount point for the USB stick by running the command sudo mkdir /mnt/usb.
Mount the USB stick partition to the new directory by running the command sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb. Again, replace /dev/sda1 with the correct partition name if it's different.
To ensure that the USB stick partition is mounted automatically at boot time, edit the /etc/fstab file by running the command sudo nano /etc/fstab and add the following line to the end of the file:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb ext4 defaults 0 2

Save and exit the file by pressing Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter.
11. Finally, restart the Raspberry Pi to make sure the changes take effect by running the command sudo reboot.

Once you have completed these steps, your Kingston DataTraveller Max Type-A 256GB USB stick should be set up as a datastore for your VMs on Raspberry Pi 4. You can test it by creating a new virtual machine and selecting the USB stick as the storage device.

Thank you for the good description. But you describe preparing the USB stick under Raspberry Pi OS, not under ESXi-ARM. But I don't use any virtualizer that runs under Raspberry Pi OS.

VMFS on USB is not officially supported and this is why you can't simply use it. With that said, you _can_ use USB for VMFS, but you do need to go through the setup. You can see https://williamlam.com/2022/02/creating-a-vmfs-datastore-greater-than-2tb-on-a-usb-device-in-esxi.html for instructions.

/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop
chkconfig usbarbitrator off

However using USB Sticks as DataStore is not supported and I highly recommend not doing this. This won't work well.

Thanks for the quick reply. I also tried to connect a SSD with USB adapter, but that did not work either. I will try your commands. I have a USB ZigBee Bridge connected to a VM for my SmartHome control, let's see if that still works then.

You have to decide. Turning of the usbarbitrator will result in not being able to passthrough usb devices as the Zigbee adapter.

I believe it, but it's not true. If you look at William's link, it is possible to disable pass-through per USB device. So we can keep the zigbee passed-through to a guest, and a USB disk as datastore.

Note: I've been using a zigbee passed-through to a home-assistant guest as well :-) but no USB datastore.

I didn't know. Thanks for clarification.

Hi, any plans of supporting the Orin AGX? I tried running the Fling on it but it hangs while loading some modules

Hi,

a cosmetic detail: the iso VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-21447677.aarch64.iso contains "aarch64" in the naming. It would be nice to see the cpu architecture in the offline bundle ++ naming scheme as well.

Hi,

please see a storage exception related issue https://github.com/vmware/photon/issues/1410

Hi Daniel, thanks for all the comments. It'll take some time to answer to all of them. For the Photon USB issues, the error might be coming from the ESXi USB stack. Can you check the kernel logs on the ESXi itself? If the errors come from ESXi, then I don't think the Photon team can do much, and the fling usb drivers are pretty much frozen, unless there is an obvious issue coming up.