VMware vSphere supports different types of storage, including traditional and software-defined solutions. For the physical storage, the three main categories are the following:
- Direct attached storage (DAS): vSphere supports SCSI, SATA, SAS solutions, including (in vSphere 6.5), and also NVMe solutions.
- Network-attached storage (NAS): vSphere supports NFSv3 and (starting with vSphere 6.0) NFSv4. Note that Content Library also supports the SMB protocol, but is limited to this specific function.
- Storage area network (SAN): vSphere supports several FC, FCoE, and iSCSI solutions.
Each type of storage provides different capabilities and features:
|
Storage type |
Frontend protocols |
Datastore |
vSphere features |
|
DAS |
SCSI, SATA, SAS, and so on |
VMFS |
VADP, RDM*, vSphere HA, and DRS** |
|
SAN FC |
FC... |