virtualbox.org

I am evaluating VirtualBox PUEL. I have a USB flash drive used to distribute fixed data. I would like to mount it readonly and allow multiple guest VM's to read asynchronously from this USB device. Is this possible? By default (at least) it seems that a USB device can be captured by only one VM at a time.

Thanks,
Carlos

You can't connect the same USB device to multiple physical machines, so don't ask for the impossible. Even if it's read only, only one machine can access it. Can more than one PC access the same cdrom on a physical level? No it can't, because it can't be in multiple places at the same time (i.e. other optical drives). Only through network sharing can you access the drive, but that's not the same.

cmundi, you can't do exactly what you asked, so I would recommend instead that you look at creating a shared folder that all the VMs can access. It does not need to be readonly, though that option is available. I've just tested it, and shared folders can exist on a removable drive. The drive doesn't even need to be plugged in when the VM starts.

@mpack: Thanks for your reply which is actually helpful. I am successfully using your suggestion. Brilliant! Thanks!

I became so frustrated with the way that USB worked in a Windows host that I switched to doing exactly this a long time ago.
Now I can access or not when I choose and do not need to deal with the problems. I leave USB switched off completely now.
Actually it works really well and Windows does not get mad anymore which in turn keeps me from getting upset too. Making this a win-win situation.