6.0.1

Table 6‑3. Maximum Virtual Machine Memory
Introduced in Host Version Virtual Machine Compatibility Maximum Memory Size
ESXi 6.0 ESXi 6.0 and later 4080GB
ESXi 5.5 ESXi 5.5 and later 1011GB
ESXi 5.1 ESXi 5.1 and later 1011GB
ESXi 5.0 ESXi 5.0 and later 1011GB
ESX/ESXi 4.x ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later 255GB
ESX/ESXi 3.x ESX/ESXi 3.5 and later 65532MB
The ESXi host version indicates when support began for the increased memory size. For example, the
memory size of a virtual machine with ESX/ESXi 3.5 and later compatibility running on ESXi 5.0 is restricted
to 65,532MB.
Prerequisites
Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Configuration.Memory privilege on the virtual machine.
Procedure
1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Memory.
3 In the RAM text box, type the amount of RAM to assign to the virtual machine or select one of the
suggested values from the drop-down menu.
4 Select whether the memory is specified in MB or GB.
5 Click OK.
Allocate Memory Resources
You can change the amount of memory resources allocated to a virtual machine by using the shares,
reservations, and limits settings. The host determines the appropriate amount of physical RAM to allocate to
virtual machines based on these settings. You can assign a high or low shares value to a virtual machine,
depending on its load and status.
The following user-defined settings affect the memory resource allocation of a virtual machine.
Limit
Places a limit on the consumption of memory for a virtual machine. This
value is expressed in megabytes.
Reservation
Specifies the guaranteed minimum allocation for a virtual machine. The
reservation is expressed in megabytes. If the reservation cannot be met, the
virtual machine will not turn on.
Shares
Each virtual machine is granted a number of memory shares. The more
shares a virtual machine has, the greater share of host memory it receives.
Shares represent a relative metric for allocating memory capacity. For more
information about share values, see the vSphere Resource Management
documentation.
You cannot assign a reservation to a virtual machine that is larger than its configured memory. If you give a
virtual machine a large reservation and reduce its configured memory size, the reservation is reduced to
match the new configured memory size.
Prerequisites
Verify that the virtual machine is turned off.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
102 VMware, Inc.