vSphere supports multiple storage protocols and connectivity options. Storage can be directly connected to a host, or storage can be centralized and shared with multiple hosts. Shared storage is required when implementing many vSphere features such as VMware High Availability (HA), VMware Fault Tolerance (FT), and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS).
In order to determine the storage connectivity requirements, perform the following steps:
Identify the supported storage protocols and connectivity options.
Select the storage protocol and connectivity that supports the design requirements.
Performance, availability, and costs are all factors that should be considered when choosing a storage connectivity option. The following table provides a quick overview of the different storage connectivity options and how they compare with each other in terms of performance, availability, and costs:
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Protocol |
Performance |
Availability |
Costs... |
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