Specifications

VMware, Inc. 245
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This!chapter!contains!information!about!SCSI!disks,!accessed!by!local!SCSI!adapters,!or!
on!a!Storage!Area!Network!(SAN)!by!Fibre!Channel!adapters.!Instructions!given!for!
using!SCSI!adapters!apply!to!both!local!and!Fibre!Channel!adapters.
For!additional!information!about!configuring!SANs,!see!the!VMware!SAN!Configuration!
Guide!at!www.vmware.com/support/pubs/esx_pubs.html.
This!chapter!provides!the!following!information:
! “File!System!Management!on!SCSI!Disks!and!RAID”!on!page 245
! “Using!vmkfstools”!on!page 249
! “A c c e s s i n g !Raw!SCSI!Disks”!on!page 261
! “Determining!SCSI!Target!IDs”!on!page 263
! “Sharing!the!SCSI!Bus”!on!page 264
! “Using!Storage!Area!Networks!with!ESX!Server”!on!page 266
! “Using!Persistent!Bindings”!on!page 270
! “Using!Multipathing!in!ESX!Server”!on!page 272
File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID
VMFS!(VMware!ESX!Server!File!System)!is!a!simple,!high‐performance!file!system!on!
physical!SCSI!disks!and!partitions,!used!for!storing!large!files!such!as!the!virtual!disk!
images!for!ESX!Server!virtual!machines!and,!by!default,!the!memory!images!of!
suspended!virtual!machines.!The!VMFS!also!stores!the!redo
‐log!files!for!virtual!
Storage and File Systems
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