7.0

Table 5-5. Recommendations for Enhanced Performance (continued)
System Element Recommendation
Disk location Place all data that your virtual machines use on
physical disks allocated specifically to virtual machines.
Performance is better when you do not place your virtual
machines on the disk containing the ESXi boot image. Use
physical disks that are large enough to hold disk images
that all the virtual machines use.
VMFS6 partitioning The ESXi installer creates the initial VMFS volumes on
the first blank local disk found. To add disks or modify
the original configuration, use the vSphere Client. This
practice ensures that the starting sectors of partitions are
64K-aligned, which improves storage performance.
Note For SAS-only environments, the installer might not
format the disks. For some SAS disks, it is not possible
to identify whether the disks are local or remote. After
the installation, you can use the vSphere Client to set up
VMFS.
Processors Faster processors improve ESXi performance. For certain
workloads, larger caches improve ESXi performance.
Hardware compatibility Use devices in your server that are supported by ESXi 7.0
drivers. See the Hardware Compatibility Guide at http://
www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
Incoming and Outgoing Firewall Ports for ESXi Hosts
The vSphere Client and the VMware Host Client allow you to open and close firewall ports for each
service or to allow traffic from selected IP addresses.
ESXi includes a firewall that is enabled by default. At installation time, the ESXi firewall is
configured to block incoming and outgoing traffic, except traffic for services that are enabled
in the host's security profile. For the list of supported ports and protocols in the ESXi firewall, see
the VMware Ports and Protocols Tool
™
at https://ports.vmware.com/.
The VMware Ports and Protocols Tool lists port information for services that are installed by
default. If you install other VIBs on your host, additional services and firewall ports might become
available. The information is primarily for services that are visible in the vSphere Client but the
VMware Ports and Protocols Tool includes some other ports as well.
Required Free Space for System Logging
If you used Auto Deploy to install your ESXi 7.0 host, or if you set up a log directory separate from
the default location in a scratch directory on the VMFS volume, you might need to change your
current log size and rotation settings to ensure that enough space is available for system logging .
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
VMware, Inc. 19