HI,
ESXI DOES allow to create a Datastore on USB but not from the Windows Vsphere Client. please use ESXI command line tools.
My HP Gen 8 booting ESXi 6 and then Xpenology from a single 32 GB USB
Here is how I managed to create USB based data store
1. using "partedutil" to create a VMFS partition at the end of the used partitions in the USB after booting into ESXI server installed on the USB
- http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1036609
- advice, please use the set option for all your partitions - NOT just for the new ones,
2. using "vmkfstools -C vmfs5 -b..." to create a data store on the new VMFS partition of required size
I have got 2 data stores , one to store the Expenology boot disk and one to store RDM mapping to my 3 TB drives.
I have not issues so far with the setup, and the Xpenology network share can saturate my 100 MBits/s LAN - wish I had a Gigabit one to test.
I also wish I had all the commands and the output while getting this setup, but hope this rough guide helps