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
Hardware Acceleration on NAS Devices
With the hardware acceleration, ESXi hosts can integrate with NAS devices and use several hardware
operations that NAS storage provides. The hardware acceleration uses vSphere APIs for Array
Integration (VAAI) to facilitate communications between the hosts and storage devices.
The VAAI NAS framework supports both versions of NFS storage, NFS 3 and NFS 4.1.
The VAAI NAS uses a set of storage primitives to offload storage operations from the host to the array.
The following list shows the supported NAS operations:
n
Full File Clone. Supports an ability of NAS device to clone virtual disk files. This operation is similar to
the VMFS block cloning, except that NAS devices clone entire files instead of file segments.
n
Reserve Space. Supports an ability of storage arrays to allocate space for a virtual disk file in the
thick format.
Typically, when you create a virtual disk on an NFS datastore, the NAS server determines the
allocation policy. The default allocation policy on most NAS servers is thin and does not guarantee
backing storage to the file. However, the reserve space operation can instruct the NAS device to use
vendor-specific mechanisms to reserve space for a virtual disk. As a result, you can create thick
virtual disks on the NFS datastore.
n
Native Snapshot Support. Creation of virtual machine snapshots can be offloaded to the array.
n
Extended Statistics. Supports visibility to space use on NAS devices. This functionality is useful for
thin provisioning.
With NAS storage devices, the hardware acceleration integration is implemented through vendor-specific
NAS plug-ins. These plug-ins are typically created by vendors and are distributed as VIB packages
through a website. No claim rules are required for the NAS plug-ins to function.
Several tools for installing and upgrading VIB packages are available. They include the esxcli
commands and vSphere Update Manager. For more information, see the vSphere Upgrade and Installing
and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager documentation.
Install NAS Plug-In
Install vendor-distributed hardware acceleration NAS plug-ins on your host.
This topic provides an example for a VIB package installation using the esxcli command. For more
details, see the vSphere Upgrade documentation.
Prerequisites
Install vCLI or deploy the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) virtual machine. See Getting Started with
vSphere Command-Line Interfaces. For troubleshooting, run esxcli commands in the ESXi Shell.
Procedure
1 Place your host into the maintenance mode.
vSphere Storage
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