A datastore group is a container that aggregates one or more replication-enabled datastores. The datastore groups are created by SRM and cannot be manually altered. A replication-enabled datastore is a datastore who's LUN has a replication schedule enabled at the array.

A datastore group will contain only a single datastore if the datastore doesn't store files of virtual machines from other datastores. See the preceding single-datastore datastore group conceptual diagram.

A datastore group can also contain more than one datastore. SRM aggregates multiple datastores into a single group if they have virtual machines whose files are distributed onto these datastores. For example, if VM-A has two VMDKs placed on datastores Datastore-M and Datastore-N each, and then both these datastores become part of the same datastore group. These datastore groups further aid in the creation of Protection Groups.