Site Recovery Manager and Virtual Machines Attached to RDM Disk Devices

Protection and recovery of virtual machines that are attached to a raw disk mapping (RDM) disk device is subject to different support depending on whether you use array-based replication or vSphere Replication.

Note: Site Recovery Manager does not support the protection of virtual machines attached to RDM devices in storage policy protection groups.

• Array-based replication supports RDM devices in physical compatibility mode and in virtual compatibility mode. If you use Site Recovery Manager with array-based replication, you can protect and recover virtual machines that use RDM in either physical compatibility mode or virtual compatibility mode.
• vSphere Replication supports RDM devices in virtual mode only, for both the source and target device. If you use vSphere Replication, you cannot protect and recover virtual machines that use RDM in physical compatibility mode.
• If you use both array-based replication and vSphere Replication, you can only protect and recover virtual machines that use RDM in physical compatibility mode by using array-based replication. You can protect and recover virtual machines that use RDM in virtual compatibility mode by using either array-based replication or vSphere Replication.
• Cross vCenter Server vMotion is not supported for virtual machines attached to RDM devices.