How to present TF clone copies to VM guest

We'd like to take a clone of some devices on a physical host SQL host and present them to a virtual guest.  There are two devices per database, one for MDF and one for LDF.  Is the only way to make them visible to the VM guest is by adding them as RDMs?  My concern is that as we grow this the snap/clone model we have to keep adding RDMs to our ESX environment and this could push us to or near certain VM limits like devices per ESX hosts (256) or paths to storage (1024).