6.5

Table Of Contents
Managing Storage 4
A virtual machine uses a virtual disk to store its operating system, program les, and other data associated
with its activities. A virtual disk is a large physical le, or a set of les, that can be copied, moved, archived,
and backed up.
To store virtual disk les and manipulate the les, a host requires dedicated storage space. ESXi storage is
storage space on a variety of physical storage systems, local or networked, that a host uses to store virtual
machine disks.
Chapter 5, “Managing iSCSI Storage,” on page 69 discusses iSCSI storage management. Chapter 6,
“Managing Third-Party Storage Arrays,” on page 101 explains how to manage the Pluggable Storage
Architecture, including Path Selection Plugin (PSP) and Storage Array Type Plug-in (SATP) conguration.
For information on masking and unmasking paths with ESXCLI, see the vSphere Storage documentation.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Introduction to Storage,” on page 42
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“Examining LUNs,” on page 45
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“Detach a Device and Remove a LUN,” on page 48
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“Reaach a Device,” on page 49
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“Working with Permanent Device Loss,” on page 49
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“Managing Paths,” on page 50
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“Managing Path Policies,” on page 54
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“Scheduling Queues for Virtual Machine I/O,” on page 57
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“Managing NFS/NAS Datastores,” on page 57
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“Monitor and Manage FibreChannel SAN Storage,” on page 59
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“Monitoring and Managing Virtual SAN Storage,” on page 60
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“Monitoring vSphere Flash Read Cache,” on page 62
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“Monitoring and Managing Virtual Volumes,” on page 62
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“Migrating Virtual Machines with svmotion,” on page 63
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“Conguring FCoE Adapters,” on page 65
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“Scanning Storage Adapters,” on page 66
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“Retrieving SMART Information,” on page 66
VMware, Inc.
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