VMware Cloud on AWS provides two vSAN datastores in each SDDC cluster: WorkloadDatastore, managed by the Cloud Administrator, and vsanDatastore, managed by VMware.
These datastores are logical entities that share a common capacity pool. Each datastore reports the total available free space in the cluster as its Capacity. Capacity consumed in either datastore updates the Free value for both.
vsanDatastore
This datastore provides storage for the management VMs in your SDDC, such as vCenter, NSX controllers, and so on.
The management and troubleshooting of the vSAN storage in your SDDC is handled by VMware. For this reason, you can't edit the vSAN cluster settings or monitor the vSAN cluster. You also do not have permission to browse this datastore, upload files to it, or delete files from it.
WorkloadDatastore
This datastore provides storage for your workload VMs, templates, ISO images, and any other files you choose to upload to your SDDC. You have full permission to browse this datastore, create folders, upload files, delete files, and perform all other operations needed to consume this storage.
The datastores in your SDDC are assigned the default VM storage policy by default. You can define additional storage policies and assign them to either datastore. For more information on vSAN storage policies, see Using vSAN Policies.
