VMware vSphere supports different types of storage architecture, both internally (in this case the controller is crucial; it must be in the HCL) or externally with shared SAS DAS, SAN FC, SAN iSCSI, SAN FCoE, or NFS NAS (in this case, the HCL is fundamental for external storage, the fabric elements, and the host adapters). Different storage types and their properties are displayed in the following table:
Technology |
Protocols |
Transfer |
Interface |
FC |
FC/SCSI |
Block access |
FC HBA |
FCoE |
FCoE/SCSI |
Block access |
Converged network adapter (hardware FCoE) NIC with FCoE support (software FCoE) |
iSCSI |
IP/SCSI |
Block access |
iSCSI HBA-or iSCSI-enabled NIC (hardware iSCSI) Network adapter (software iSCSI) |
NAS |
IP/NFS |
File access |
Network adapter |
Different storage types have different vSphere characteristics:
... |