Hi,
I'm currently using the esxi 5 free edition on a mac mini.
This little device has replaced a hulking big and noisy server with significantl increased performance.
So I'm very 
.
Only the backup side is causing me anxiety. I'm considering buying the full esxi license if only to allow for VM backup possibilities.
At the moment, the only possibility I found, is stopping a VM and exporting it to an OVF Template - which is manual and takes too long.
But, on the other hand, all the backups method I found for the commercial license, do not seem to leave the Esxi datastore, storing their backupsets on a vmfs datastore. This locks that backupset again to the esxi computer.
I strive to have daily onsite and offsite backupsets - stored on onsite disks; online backup and removable disks. Those last are rotated offsite on a daily basis.
Should the esxi computer be lost (fire,theft, meteorstrike ), I'm sure to have recent restore possibilties.
What (semi)automatic methods exist to take VM backups that allow for removable disks?
regards
glenn