To provide extra storage capacity to your VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC, create a datastore.

VMware Cloud Flex Storage provides NFS datastores for workloads that do not require vSAN performance for mission-critical or consistent low-latency storage requirements.

When you create a datastore, you select an SDDC and attach its clusters to the datastore. You are billed for a minimum of 25 TiB of storage capacity for each datastore you create. Each datastore provides up to ~800 TiB of logical (usable) capacity.

A datastore is associated with one SDDC only, but you can mount up to four datastores per-SDDC. If you do not have an SDDC deployed in the region you are managing, then you cannot create a datastore there.

Current limitations for creating a datastore:
  • You cannot use non-ASCII characters in the datastore name.
  • Do not create a datastore if the SDDC cluster is running a main task, such as adding or removing a host from the cluster.
  • Once you create a datastore, you cannot move it to a different AWS availability zone.
  • Cloning VMs that reside on a VMware Cloud Flex Storage datastore requires a full data copy and hence can take some time to complete.

Procedure

  1. Log in to VMware Cloud Services using your VMware account at https://console.cloud.vmware.com.
  2. Click the VMware Cloud Flex Storage tile.
  3. From the left navigation, select Summary.
  4. Click the Create Datastore button.
    Note: Only SDDCs that exist in the same region where the datastore was created are selectable. Ineligible SDDCs are listed but are not selectable.
  5. In the Create datastore dialog box, select an SDDC where you want to attach its clusters to the datastore. The datastore is created in the same AWS availability zone as the selected the SDDC.
  6. Click Next.
  7. Enter a name for the datastore and then confirm that you will be charged the minimum for 25 TiB of storage capacity. For more information, see VMware Cloud Flex Storage pricing.
  8. Enter CREATE DATASTORE and then click the Create button.
    Note: If the datastore creation operation fails, VMware support is notified and can assist.