Storage DRS is a mechanism to balance space utilization and the I/O load on datastores in a datastore cluster by migrating (Storage vMotion) the VMs. Storage DRS can only be enabled on a datastore cluster. To learn how to create a datastore cluster, read the recipe Creating a datastore cluster.
It also influences the initial placement of the VMs on the datastores. For the Storage DRS' I/O load balancing to work, all the hosts accessing the datastores should be of Version ESXi 5.0 or above. Also, the cluster should not contain replicated and nonreplicated datastores. In this recipe, we will learn how to enable Storage DRS.
The following procedure will guide you through the steps required to enable SDRS on a datastore cluster:
Use the vSphere Web Client to connect to vCenter Server.
Navigate to Home | Storage.
Select the datastore cluster from the left pane and navigate to the Manage tab and then to the Settings subtab:
Click on Storage DRS and then click on Edit...