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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 51
Chapter 4 Managing Storage
To enable or disable per file I/O scheduling
Runesxcli system settings kernel set -s isPerFileSchedModelActive -v FALSEtodisable
perfilescheduling.
Runesxcli system settings kernel set -s isPerFileSchedModelActive -v TRUEtoenable
perfilescheduling.
Managing NFS/NAS Datastores
ESXihostscanaccessadesignatedNFSvolumelocatedonaNAS(NetworkAttachedStorage)server,can
mountthevolume,andcanuseitforitsstorageneeds.YoucanuseNFSvolumestostoreandbootvirtual
machinesinthesamewaythatyouuseVMFSdatastores.
Capabilities Supported by NFS/NAS
AnNFSclientbuiltintotheESXihypervisorusestheNetworkFileSystem(NFS)protocoloverTCP/IPto
accessadesignatedNFSvolumethatislocatedonaNASserver.TheESXihostcanmountthevolumeanduse
itforitsstorageneeds.vSpheresupportsversions3and4.1of
theNFSprotocol.
Typically,theNFSvolumeordirectoryiscreatedbyastorageadministratorandisexportedformtheNFS
server.TheNFSvolumedoesnotneedtobeformattedwithalocalfilesystem,suchasVMFS.Youcanmount
thevolumedirectlyonESXihosts,anduse
ittostoreandbootvirtualmachinesinthesamewaythatyouuse
VMFSdatastores.
InadditiontostoringvirtualdisksonNFSdatastores,youcanalsouseNFSasacentralrepositoryforISO
images,virtualmachinetemplates,andsoon.IfyouusethedatastoreforISOimages,
youcanconnectthe
virtualmachineʹsCDROMdevicetoanISOfileonthedatastoreandinstallaguestoperatingsystemfromthe
ISOfile.
ESXihostssupportthefollowingsharedstoragecapabilitiesonNFSvolumes:
VMwarevMotionandStoragevMotion
HighAvailability(HA),FaultTolerance,andDistributedResourceScheduler(DRS)
ISOimages,whicharepresentedasCDROMstovirtualmachines
Virtualmachinesnapshots
Hostprofiles
Virtualmachineswithlargecapacityvirtualdisks,ordisksgreaterthan2TB.VirtualdiskscreatedonNFS
datastoresarethinprovisionedbydefault,unlessyouusehardwareaccelerationthatsupportsthe
ReserveSpaceoperation.NFS4.1doesnotsupporthardwareacceleration.See“HardwareAcceleration
onNASDevices”inthevSphereStorage
documentation.
InadditiontostoringvirtualdisksonNFSdatastores,youcanalsouseNFSasacentralrepositoryforISO
images,virtualmachinetemplates,andsoon.
TouseNFSasasharedrepository,youcreateadirectoryontheNFSserverandthenmountthedirectoryasa
datastore
onallhosts.IfyouusethedatastoreforISOimages,youcanconnectthevirtualmachineʹsCDROM
devicetoanISOfileonthedatastoreandinstallaguestoperatingsystemfromtheISOfile.
Adding and Deleting NAS File Systems
Youcanlist,add,anddeleteaNASfilesystemwithESXCLIorwithvicfg-nas.
Managing NAS File Systems with ESXCLI
YoucanuseESXCLIasavCLIcommandwithconnectionoptions(see“ConnectionOptionsforvCLIHost
ManagementCommandsonpage 18)orintheESXishell.