Datastores are logical containers, analogous to file systems, that hide specifics of each storage device and provide a uniform model for storing virtual machine files. You can display all datastores available to your hosts and analyze their properties.
Datastores are added to vCenter Server in the following ways:
- You can create a VMFS datastore, an NFS version 3 or 4.1 datastore, or a Virtual Volumes datastore using the New Datastore wizard. A vSAN datastore is automatically created when you enable vSAN.
- When you add an ESXi host to vCenter Server, all datastores on the host are added to vCenter Server.
The following table describes datastore details that you can see when you review datastores through the vSphere Client. Certain characteristic might not be available or applicable to all types of datastores.
| Datastore Information | Applicable Datastore Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Name | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
Editable name that you assign to a datastore. For information on renaming a datastore, see Change Datastore Name. |
| Type | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
File system that the datastore uses. For information about VMFS and NFS datastores and how to manage them, see Working with Datastores. For information about vSAN datastores, see the Administering VMware vSAN documentation. For information about Virtual Volumes, see Working with VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes. |
| Device Backing | VMFS NFS vSAN |
Information about underlying storage, such as a storage device on which the datastore is deployed (VMFS), server and folder (NFS), or disk groups (vSAN). |
| Protocol Endpoints | vVol | Information about corresponding protocol endpoints. See Protocol Endpoints. |
| Extents | VMFS | Individual extents that the datastore spans and their capacity. |
| Drive Type | VMFS | Type of the underlying storage device, such as a flash drive or a regular HHD drive. For details, see Working with Flash Devices. |
| Capacity | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
Includes total capacity, provisioned space, and free space. |
| Mount Point | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
A path to the datastore in the /vmfs/volumes/ directory of the host. |
| Capability Sets | VMFS
Note: A multi-extent VMFS datastore assumes capabilities of only one of its extents.
NFS vSAN vVol |
Information about storage data services that the underlying storage entity provides. You cannot modify them. |
| Storage I/O Control | VMFS NFS |
Information on whether cluster-wide storage I/O prioritization is enabled. See the vSphere Resource Management documentation. |
| Hardware Acceleration | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
Information on whether the underlying storage entity supports hardware acceleration. The status can be Supported, Not Supported, or Unknown. For details, see Storage Hardware Acceleration.
Note: NFS 4.1 does not support Hardware Acceleration.
|
| Tags | VMFS NFS vSAN vVol |
Datastore capabilities that you define and associate with datastores in a form of tags. For information, see Assign Tags to Datastores. |
| Connectivity with Hosts | VMFS NFS vVol |
Hosts where the datastore is mounted. |
| Multipathing | VMFS vVol |
Path selection policy the host uses to access storage. For more information, see Understanding Multipathing and Failover. |
