Create a Disk Group or Storage Pool in vSAN Cluster

Depending on the storage architecture you use in your cluster, you can decide to create a disk group or storage pool.

Create a Disk Group on a Host (vSAN Original Storage Architecture)

You can claim cache and capacity devices to define disk groups on a vSAN host. Select one cache device and one or more capacity devices to create the disk group.

1. Navigage to the vSAN cluster.
2. Click the Configure tab.
3. Under vSAN, click Disk Management, select a host from the table, and click VIEW DISKS.
4. Click CREATE DISK GROUP.
5. Select disks to claim.
   1. Select the flash device to use for the cache tier.
   2. Select the disks to use for the capacity tier.
   7. Click Create to confirm your selections.

   Note: The new disk group appears in the list.

Create a Storage Pool on a Host (vSAN Express Storage Architecture)

You can claim disks to define a storage pool on a vSAN host. Each host that contributes storage contains a single storage pool of flash devices. Each flash device provides caching and capacity to the cluster. You can create a storage pool with any devices that are compatible for ESA. vSAN creates only one storage pool per host.

In a storage pool, each device provides both caching and capacity in a single tier. This is different from a Disk Group, which has dedicated devices in different tiers of cache and capacity.

Use vSAN Managed Disk Claim to automatically claim all compatible disks on the cluster hosts. When you add new hosts, vSAN will also claim compatible disks on those hosts. Any disks added manually are not affected by this setting. You can manually add such disks to the storage pool.

1. Navigage to the vSAN cluster.
2. Click the Configure tab.
3. Under vSAN, click Disk Management.
4. Click Claim Unused Disks.
   Note: You can change the disk claim mode to use vSAN Managed Disk Claim. vSAN will automatically claim all compatible devices on cluster hosts.
5. Group by host.
6. Select compatible disks to claim.
7. Click Create to confirm your selections.
   Note: The disk management page appears with the hosts listed. There will be an indication that disks are claimed on the hosts in the "Disks in use" column reflecting the updated number of disks per host. To see the claimed disks for the host, click the "View disks" button.