When your ESXi host connects to block-based storage systems, LUNs or storage devices that support ESXi become available to the host. You can display all storage devices, including all local and networked devices. If you use third-party multipathing plug-ins, the storage devices available through the plug-ins also appear on the list.
For each storage adapter, you can display a separate list of storage devices available for this adapter.
Generally, when you review storage devices, you see the following information.
| Storage Device Information | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Also called Display Name. It is a name that the ESXi host assigns to the device based on the storage type and manufacturer. You can change this name to a name of your choice. |
| Identifier | A universally unique identifier that is intrinsic to the device. |
| Operational State | Indicates whether the device is attached or detached. For details, see Detach Storage Devices. |
| LUN | Logical Unit Number (LUN) within the SCSI target. The LUN number is provided by the storage system. If a target has only one LUN, the LUN number is always zero (0). |
| Type | Type of device, for example, disk or CD-ROM. |
| Drive Type | Information about whether the device is a flash drive or a regular HDD drive. For information about flash drives, see Working with Flash Devices. |
| Transport | Transportation protocol your host uses to access the device. The protocol depends on the type of storage being used. See Types of Physical Storage. |
| Capacity | Total capacity of the storage device. |
| Owner | The plug-in, such as the NMP or a third-party plug-in, that the host uses to manage paths to the storage device. For details, see Managing Multiple Paths. |
| Hardware Acceleration | Information about whether the storage device assists the host with virtual machine management operations. The status can be Supported, Not Supported, or Unknown. For details, see Storage Hardware Acceleration. |
| Sector Format | Indicates whether the device uses a traditional, 512n, or advanced sector format, such as 512e. For more information, see Storage Device Formats and VMFS Datastores. |
| Location | A path to the storage device in the /vmfs/devices/ directory. |
| Partition Format | A partition scheme used by the storage device. It can be of a master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) format. The GPT devices can support datastores greater than 2 TB. For more information, see Storage Device Formats and VMFS Datastores. |
| Partitions | Primary and logical partitions, including a VMFS datastore, if configured. |
| Multipathing Policies (VMFS datastores) | Path Selection Policy and Storage Array Type Policy the host uses to manage paths to storage. For more information, see Understanding Multipathing and Failover. |
| Paths (VMFS datastores) | Paths used to access storage and their status. |
