Datastores are the foundation that all VMs are based on, so we should take a closer look at them. Since Version 5.1 of vCloud Director, we can use not only datastores but also storage profiles and datastore clusters for VM storage.
Datastores probably don't need to be explained in detail, but here is a short introduction to cover the basics. A datastore is a VMware object that exists in ESXi. This object can be a hard disk that is attached to an ESXi server, an NFS, or iSCSI mount on an ESXi host, or a fiber channel disk that is attached to an HBA on the ESXi server.
A storage profile is a container that contains one or more datastores. Storage profiles don't have any intelligence implemented in them; they just group datastores together. However, they are extremely beneficial in vCloud. If you run out of storage space on a storage profile, you can just expand the storage by adding another datastore to the same storage profile.
Datastore clusters...