Configuring Desktop Pools on Clusters With More Than Eight Hosts

In vSphere 5.1 and later, you can deploy a linked clone desktop pool on a cluster that contains up to 32 ESXi hosts. All ESXi hosts in the cluster must be version 5.1 or later. The hosts can use VMFS or NFS datastores. VMFS datastores must be VMFS5 or later.

In vSphere 5.0, you can deploy linked clones on a cluster that contains more than eight ESXi hosts, but you must store the replica disks on NFS datastores. You can store replica disks on VMFS datastores only with clusters that contain eight or fewer hosts.

In vSphere 5.0, the following rules apply when you configure a linked clone pool on a cluster that contains more than eight hosts:

• If you store replica disks on the same datastores as OS disks, you must store the replica and OS disks on NFS datastores.
• If you store replica disks on separate datastores than OS disks, the replica disks must be stored on NFS datastores. The OS disks can be stored on NFS or VMFS datastores.
• If you store Composer persistent disks on separate datastores, the persistent disks can be configured on NFS or VMFS datastores.

In vSphere 4.1 and earlier releases, you can deploy desktop pools only with clusters that contain eight or fewer hosts.