Connect external hard drive to vm
In this post steps for connecting and using a USB external hard drive inside your VMware Workstation virtual machine. Hyper-V in Windows 10 and you do not need to do this. WIth this version of Hyper-V, you can simply use the New-Hard Disk feature in the Hyper-V MMC to create a new VHDX. As long as the device has a drive letter, you are good to go. That means you can create a VHDX on a thumb-drive, an external USB disk, and even an SD Card.
![](https://computersolve.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/img.webp)
Steps to connect USB hard drive to Windows Virtual Machine:
Follow these steps to connect USB hard drive to vm:
- Plug the external USB hard drive into the USB port of your physical machine.
- Launch VMware Workstation.
- Then start your virtual machine
- Click VM > Removable device > external_hard_drive_name, then click Connect.
- Windows indicates that it is installing the necessary software for your new hard drive, then assigns it a new drive letter.
- To access the contents of the USB hard drive, double-click My Computer. The hard drive appears in the My Computer window.
- Double-click the hard drive to access the contents.
Steps to connect external hard drive to VMware VM:
In these below steps focuses on how to connect an external USB drive to a virtual machine in VMware Workstation. If you are running ESXi virtual machines, you can go to VM >> Edit Settings to add hardware which contributes to copy ESXi VM to USB hard drive.
- Firstly, verify the USB controller is present. Go to VM >> Settings >> Add Hardware >> USB Controller >> Finish.
- Plug the USB device into the USB port of the physical computer.
- Access to VMware Workstation and click VM >> Removable devices >> your external hard drive, then click Connect.
![removable device option](https://computersolve.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2-4.png)
- If you want to access to the content in USB device, please go to This PC, right-click the hard drive to look through the content.
- You can use the external hard drive to store the data of virtual machines or run virtual machines off it.
Can you run VM from an external device?
![Can you run VM from an external device image](https://computersolve.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Blog_VMExternal_1078x516-1024x490.png)
Yes, it is possible, but you will likely have some performance loss. The VM should run okay as long as you don’t have operations that require a lot of file writing. Also, the smaller the VM, the better. If you have a 50-60 GB Windows VM, it will be very slow on an external 5400 HD with USB 3.
Hope this post is informative to you.