How to configure USB passthrough from an ESXi host

USB passthrough is a very useful feature that allows to add to a virtual machine residing on a VMware ESXi host USB devices connected to the host itself.

Usually USB passthrough is used to connect security dongles or storage USB devices to virtual machines. The USB devices must be connected only with a VM at time. In order to assign them to other VMs you need to perform a disconnection.

The configuration is extremely simple and involves just a few steps.

Log in your VMware vSphere Web Client and access your Inventory:

How to configure USB passthrough from an ESXi host

Open the Virtual Machines list and select the one to which the USB device will be added. Right-click and choose Edit settings:

How to configure USB passthrough from an ESXi host

From the New device menu select Host USB device and click Add:

How to configure USB passthrough from an ESXi host

Use the dropdown menu and select the USB device you want to add. In our example we checked Support vMotion while device is connected because vMotion is enabled for this virtual machine. VMware suggest to disable vMotion support for USB passthrough, for better performance and stability:

How to configure USB passthrough from an ESXi host

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