I'm going to setup an ESXi 5 server just to host a few development boxes. They're not very important but I would still like to have a backup of them once a week. However, I was wondering if I can use the local disks to have the vmdk files on but then back them up somewhere else. Our other backup utility for the machines can use a CIFS/NFS mount, but in this case if the VMs were on the local disks that would not be possible.
Is there any way for me to get at those disks so I can make a backup of them if they are using the local disks as a datastore?