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
n
Operational state of the device changes to Lost Communication.
n
All paths are shown as Dead.
n
A warning about the device being permanently inaccessible appears in the VMkernel log file.
To recover from the unplanned PDL condition and remove the unavailable device from the host, perform
the following tasks.
Task Description
Power off and unregister all virtual machines that are running on the datastore affected by the PDL
condition.
See vSphere Virtual Machine
Administration.
Unmount the datastore. See Unmount Datastores.
Rescan all ESXi hosts that had access to the device.
Note If the rescan is not successful and the host continues to list the device, some pending I/O or
active references to the device might still exist. Check for any items that might still have an active
reference to the device or datastore. The items include virtual machines, templates, ISO images,
raw device mappings, and so on.
See Perform Storage
Rescan.
Handling Transient APD Conditions
A storage device is considered to be in the all paths down (APD) state when it becomes unavailable to
your ESXi host for an unspecified time period.
The reasons for an APD state can be, for example, a failed switch or a disconnected storage cable.
In contrast with the permanent device loss (PDL) state, the host treats the APD state as transient and
expects the device to be available again.
The host continues to retry issued commands in an attempt to reestablish connectivity with the device. If
the host's commands fail the retries for a prolonged period, the host might be at risk of having
performance problems. Potentially, the host and its virtual machines might become unresponsive.
To avoid these problems, your host uses a default APD handling feature. When a device enters the APD
state, the host turns on a timer. With the timer on, the host continues to retry non-virtual machine
commands for a limited time period only.
By default, the APD timeout is set to 140 seconds. This value is typically longer than most devices require
to recover from a connection loss. If the device becomes available within this time, the host and its virtual
machine continue to run without experiencing any problems.
If the device does not recover and the timeout ends, the host stops its attempts at retries and stops any
non-virtual machine I/O. Virtual machine I/O continues retrying. The vSphere Client displays the following
information for the device with the expired APD timeout:
n
The operational state of the device changes to Dead or Error.
n
All paths are shown as Dead.
n
Datastores on the device are dimmed.
vSphere Storage
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