Unassigned Devices - Passing through to a VM

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I have an unassigned 4TB WD Purple which I pass though to my Win10 VM for recording IP Cameras.

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First thing is to get its device address. You want to use the device id as this remains persistent across reboots or if you rearrange your drives in your system.

  • Open the Unraid Terminal from the web GUI or SSH in if you prefer.

  • Navigate to /dev/disk/by-id/ and ‘ls’ to see all your physical disks and partitions.

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  • In my case I am using a WD Purple 4TB which I know the model is WD40PURX. If you have more than one or are unsure, use the serial number to identify the correct disk.

  • Copy the entire name of the device which is NOT suffixed (i.e. not the -part1 or -part2 entries)

Next is to assign the unassigned drive to your VM so make sure your VM is shut down and then edit its settings.
You want to add a second vDisk location. Change to location to 'manual.
In the location entry section type “dev/disk/by-id/” and then paste the name of the disk you copied earlier.

2vmset

Update the settings and start your VM. Winning.

P.S. Just as a reminder, unassigned disks are not protected by parity.

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