Set Up vSAN Direct for vSphere with Tanzu

As a vSphere administrator, set up vSAN Direct to be used with vSAN Data Persistence platform. Use unclaimed storage devices local to your ESXi host.

Prerequisites

If vSAN automatically claims all local storage devices in your deployment, use the esxcli command to tag the devices you want to be available for vSAN Direct. See Tag Storage Devices for vSAN Direct. Alternately, you can use a script. For information, see Using Script to Tag Storage Devices for vSAN Direct.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the vSAN cluster.
2. Click the Configure tab.
3. Under vSAN, click Disk Management.
4. Click Claim Unused Disks.
5. On the Claim Unused Disks dialog box, click the vSAN Direct tab.
6. Select a device to claim and select a check box in the Claim for vSAN Direct column.
   Note: If you claimed the devices for a regular vSAN datastore, these devices do not appear in the vSAN Direct tab.

   
7. Click Create.
   For each device you claim, vSAN Direct creates a new datastore.
8. Click the Datastores tab to display all vSAN Direct datastores in your cluster.
   

What to do next

You can use vSAN Direct with external storage. For more information, see Use External Storage with vSAN Direct.