6.7
Table Of Contents
- vSphere Storage
- Contents
- About vSphere Storage
- Introduction to Storage
- Getting Started with a Traditional Storage Model
- Overview of Using ESXi with a SAN
- Using ESXi with Fibre Channel SAN
- Configuring Fibre Channel Storage
- Configuring Fibre Channel over Ethernet
- Booting ESXi from Fibre Channel SAN
- Booting ESXi with Software FCoE
- Best Practices for Fibre Channel Storage
- Using ESXi with iSCSI SAN
- Configuring iSCSI Adapters and Storage
- ESXi iSCSI SAN Recommendations and Restrictions
- Configuring iSCSI Parameters for Adapters
- Set Up Independent Hardware iSCSI Adapters
- Configure Dependent Hardware iSCSI Adapters
- Configure the Software iSCSI Adapter
- Configure iSER Adapters
- Modify General Properties for iSCSI or iSER Adapters
- Setting Up Network for iSCSI and iSER
- Using Jumbo Frames with iSCSI
- Configuring Discovery Addresses for iSCSI Adapters
- Configuring CHAP Parameters for iSCSI Adapters
- Configuring Advanced Parameters for iSCSI
- iSCSI Session Management
- Booting from iSCSI SAN
- Best Practices for iSCSI Storage
- Managing Storage Devices
- Storage Device Characteristics
- Understanding Storage Device Naming
- Storage Rescan Operations
- Identifying Device Connectivity Problems
- Enable or Disable the Locator LED on Storage Devices
- Erase Storage Devices
- Working with Flash Devices
- About VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache
- Working with Datastores
- Types of Datastores
- Understanding VMFS Datastores
- Upgrading VMFS Datastores
- Understanding Network File System Datastores
- Creating Datastores
- Managing Duplicate VMFS Datastores
- Increasing VMFS Datastore Capacity
- Administrative Operations for Datastores
- Set Up Dynamic Disk Mirroring
- Collecting Diagnostic Information for ESXi Hosts on a Storage Device
- Checking Metadata Consistency with VOMA
- Configuring VMFS Pointer Block Cache
- Understanding Multipathing and Failover
- Failovers with Fibre Channel
- Host-Based Failover with iSCSI
- Array-Based Failover with iSCSI
- Path Failover and Virtual Machines
- Pluggable Storage Architecture and Path Management
- Viewing and Managing Paths
- Using Claim Rules
- Scheduling Queues for Virtual Machine I/Os
- Raw Device Mapping
- Storage Policy Based Management
- Virtual Machine Storage Policies
- Workflow for Virtual Machine Storage Policies
- Populating the VM Storage Policies Interface
- About Rules and Rule Sets
- Creating and Managing VM Storage Policies
- About Storage Policy Components
- Storage Policies and Virtual Machines
- Default Storage Policies
- Using Storage Providers
- Working with Virtual Volumes
- About Virtual Volumes
- Virtual Volumes Concepts
- Virtual Volumes and Storage Protocols
- Virtual Volumes Architecture
- Virtual Volumes and VMware Certificate Authority
- Snapshots and Virtual Volumes
- Before You Enable Virtual Volumes
- Configure Virtual Volumes
- Provision Virtual Machines on Virtual Volumes Datastores
- Virtual Volumes and Replication
- Best Practices for Working with vSphere Virtual Volumes
- Troubleshooting Virtual Volumes
- Filtering Virtual Machine I/O
- Storage Hardware Acceleration
- Hardware Acceleration Benefits
- Hardware Acceleration Requirements
- Hardware Acceleration Support Status
- Hardware Acceleration for Block Storage Devices
- Hardware Acceleration on NAS Devices
- Hardware Acceleration Considerations
- Thin Provisioning and Space Reclamation
- Using vmkfstools
- vmkfstools Command Syntax
- The vmkfstools Command Options
- -v Suboption
- File System Options
- Virtual Disk Options
- Supported Disk Formats
- Creating a Virtual Disk
- Initializing a Virtual Disk
- Inflating a Thin Virtual Disk
- Converting a Zeroedthick Virtual Disk to an Eagerzeroedthick Disk
- Removing Zeroed Blocks
- Deleting a Virtual Disk
- Renaming a Virtual Disk
- Cloning or Converting a Virtual Disk or RDM
- Extending a Virtual Disk
- Upgrading Virtual Disks
- Creating a Virtual Compatibility Mode Raw Device Mapping
- Creating a Physical Compatibility Mode Raw Device Mapping
- Listing Attributes of an RDM
- Displaying Virtual Disk Geometry
- Checking and Repairing Virtual Disks
- Checking Disk Chain for Consistency
- Storage Device Options
4K Native Format with Software Emulation
Another advanced format that ESXi supports is the 4Kn sector technology. In the 4Kn devices, both
physical and logical sectors are 4096 bytes (4 KiB) in length. The device does not have an emulation
layer, but exposes its 4Kn physical sector size directly to ESXi.
ESXi detects and registers the 4Kn devices and automatically emulates them as 512e. The device is
presented to upper layers in ESXi as 512e. But the guest operating systems always see it as a 512n
device. You can continue using existing VMs with legacy guest OSes and applications on the host with
the 4Kn devices.
When you use 4Kn devices, the following considerations apply:
n
ESXi supports only local 4Kn SAS and SATA HDDs.
n
ESXi does not support 4Kn SSD and NVMe devices, or 4Kn devices as RDMs.
n
ESXi can boot only from a 4Kn device with UEFI.
n
You can use the 4Kn device to configure a coredump partition and coredump file.
n
Only the NMP plug-in can claim the 4Kn devices. You cannot use the HPP to claim these devices.
n
With vSAN, you can use only the 4Kn capacity HDDs for vSAN Hybrid Arrays. For information, see
the Administering VMware vSAN documentation.
n
Due to the software emulation layer, the performance of the 4Kn devices depends on the alignment of
the I/Os. For best performance, run workloads that issue mostly 4K aligned I/Os.
n
Workloads accessing the emulated 4Kn device directly using scatter-gather I/O (SGIO) must issue
I/Os compatible with the 512e disk.
Example: Determine Device Format
To determine whether the device uses the 512n, 512e, or 4Kn format, run the following command.
#esxcli storage core device capacity list
Device Physical Blocksize Logical Blocksize Logical Block Count Size Format
Type
-------------------- ------------------ ----------------- ------------------- -----------
-----------
naa.5000xxxxxxxxx36f 512 512 2344225968 1144641 MiB 512n
naa.5000xxxxxxxxx030 4096 512 3516328368 1716957 MiB 4Kn SWE
naa.5000xxxxxxxxx8df 512 512 2344225968 1144641 MiB 512n
naa.5000xxxxxxxxx4f4 4096 512 3516328368 1716957 MiB 4Kn SWE
Understanding Storage Device Naming
Each storage device, or LUN, is identified by several names.
vSphere Storage
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