6.5.1
Table Of Contents
- vSphere Storage
- Contents
- About vSphere Storage
- Updated Information
- 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 Requirements
- ESXi iSCSI SAN Restrictions
- Setting LUN Allocations for iSCSI
- Network Configuration and Authentication
- Set Up Independent Hardware iSCSI Adapters
- About Dependent Hardware iSCSI Adapters
- About the Software iSCSI Adapter
- Modify General Properties for iSCSI Adapters
- Setting Up iSCSI Network
- 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
- Edit Configuration File Parameters
- 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
- 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
- Raw Device Mapping
- Software-Defined Storage and Storage Policy Based Management
- About Storage Policy Based Management
- Virtual Machine Storage Policies
- Working with Virtual Machine Storage Policies
- Populating the VM Storage Policies Interface
- Default Storage Policies
- Creating and Managing VM Storage Policies
- Storage Policies and Virtual Machines
- Assign Storage Policies to Virtual Machines
- Change Storage Policy Assignment for Virtual Machine Files and Disks
- Monitor Storage Compliance for Virtual Machines
- Check Compliance for a VM Storage Policy
- Find Compatible Storage Resource for Noncompliant Virtual Machine
- Reapply Virtual Machine Storage Policy
- 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
- 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
Prerequisites
Note the number of days passed since the last reboot of your ESXi host. For example, ten days.
Procedure
1 Obtain the total number of blocks written to the flash device since the last reboot.
Run the esxcli storage core device stats get -d=device_ID command. For example:
~ # esxcli storage core device stats get -d t10.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Device: t10.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Successful Commands: xxxxxxx
Blocks Read: xxxxxxxx
Blocks Written: 629145600
Read Operations: xxxxxxxx
The Blocks Written item in the output shows the number of blocks written to the device since the last
reboot. In this example, the value is 629,145,600. After each reboot, it resets to 0.
2 Calculate the total number of writes and convert to GB.
One block is 512 bytes. To calculate the total number of writes, multiply the Blocks Written value by
512, and convert the resulting value to GB.
In this example, the total number of writes since the last reboot is approximately 322 GB.
3 Estimate the average number of writes per day in GB.
Divide the total number of writes by the number of days since the last reboot.
If the last reboot was ten days ago, you get 32 GB of writes per day. You can average this number
over the time period.
4 Estimate lifetime of your device by using the following formula:
vendor provided number of writes per day times vendor provided life span divided by actual average
number of writes per day
For example, if your vendor guarantees a lifetime of 5 years under the condition of 20 GB writes per
day, and the actual number of writes per day is 30 GB, the life span of your flash device will be
approximately 3.3 years.
About Virtual Flash Resource
You can aggregate local flash devices on an ESXi host into a single virtualized caching layer called virtual
flash resource.
When you set up the virtual flash resource, you create a new file system, Virtual Flash File System
(VFFS). VFFS is a derivative of VMFS, which is optimized for flash devices and is used to group the
physical flash devices into a single caching resource pool. As a non-persistent resource, it cannot be
used to store virtual machines.
vSphere Storage
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