To use peripheral SCSI devices, such as printers or storage devices, you must add the device to the virtual machine. When you add a SCSI device to a virtual machine, you select the physical device to connect to and the virtual device node. You can change the physical device and configure the virtual device node. This is useful if you no longer need an existing device and want to connect to another device.

The SCSI device is assigned to the first available virtual device node on the default SCSI controller, for example (0:1). Only device nodes for the default SCSI controller are available unless you add additional controllers. If the virtual machine does not have a SCSI controller, a controller is added when you add the SCSI device. So, to avoid data congestion, you can add another SCSI controller and assign the SCSI device to a virtual device node on that controller.

For SCSI controller and virtual device node behavior, see SCSI and SATA Storage Controller Conditions, Limitations, and Compatibility.

Prerequisites

  • Power off the virtual machine.
  • Required privilege: Virtual machine.Configuration.Configure Raw device

Procedure

  1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
  2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a SCSI device to the virtual machine.
    Client Steps
    vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select SCSI Device from the drop-down menu.
    vSphere Web Client
    1. Select SCSI Device from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the wizard.
    2. Click Add.
    The SCSI device appears in the Virtual Hardware devices list.
  3. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand SCSI Device and configure the SCSI device or change the default configuration settings.
    1. From the Connection drop-down menu, select the physical SCSI device to connect to.
    2. (Optional) From the Virtual Device Node drop-down menu, select the virtual device node.
  4. Click OK.

Results

The virtual machine can access the device.