In VMware there are two types of disk
1) Physical Disk
2) Virtual Disk
Physical Disk :A Physical disk is a disk which is attached physically to the Host ESXi Server. This disk is directly access as local disk or partition.
Virtual Disk : A Virtual disk is a file or set of files which appears as a physical disk driver to a guest OS. The VD can max of 2 TB.
Virtual Disk Types :
1) RAW Disk
2) Thick Disk
3) Zero Thick Disk
4) Eager Zero Thick Disk
5) Thin Disk
RAW Disk : A raw disk is referred to as raw device mapping(RDM) and it enables a VM to have direct access to LUN on SAN. This means the actual VD is store on LUN and a RDM file is create on host EXSi server.
Thick Disk : All space is allocacted at creation time. It means when you create a VD of 40GB an entire 40GB space is reserved from this physical disk. These disk are less secure because, their disk block have bot been cleared of previous data.
Zeroed Thick Disk : All space is allocated at the time of creation and the disk is wiped clean of previous data. As the space is used, data is zeroed out on demand.
Eager Zeroed Thick Disk : All space is allocaed at the time of creation and disk is wiped clean of previous data. When this disk is created all data is zeroed out. It takes more time for creation of this disk but are faster when writing data.
Thin Disk : This this does not take the entire disk space. It start small and grows as data is written to the size specified. This disk space disk space and are faster.
VM Files
------------
vmware.log : this files keeps a logs of vmware activities and are used for troubleshooting
.nvram = this files act as BIOS of virtual machine
.vmdk = this is the actual VD which stores VM OS.
.vmx = this file store the configuration setting of a virtual machine
.vmsd = this file store vm snapshot information and metadata
.vmsn = this file store snapshot state of a virtual machine.
What is VMware DataStore
=======================
A datastore is used by vmware as a storage container for files. the datastore could be on a local server or on FC or iSCSI SAN or NFS. Inside the datasotre you will find your virtual machines. When a install an EXSi host on a physical disk of say 500 GB the entire 500GB is used as a datastore on that ESXi host. You can create multiple datastore depending on the number of disk installed on the server or entire storage devices attacted to the network.
Virtual Machine File Systems (VMFS)
=============================
VMFS is called as cluster file systems. It was developed and is used to store VM disk images, including snapshots. Multiple server can r/w the same filesystem simultaneously, while individual VM files are locked. VMFS
VMFS Version :
--------------------
VMFS version 1 = use by ESX 1.x and does not have cluster filesystems
VMFS version 2 = used by ESX 2.x and 3.x.
VMFS version 3 = used by ESX 3.x and vSphere 4.x
VMFS version 5 = used by EXXi 5.x. It introduced a new feature of 1MB block size to support larger file size. It support a file size upto 2 TB.
Limitation of VMFS
===============
Can be shared with up to 64 EXS/EXSi host
Can support LUN with max size of 64TB
The limit of 130690 files can be stored on a single datastore
1) Physical Disk
2) Virtual Disk
Physical Disk :A Physical disk is a disk which is attached physically to the Host ESXi Server. This disk is directly access as local disk or partition.
Virtual Disk : A Virtual disk is a file or set of files which appears as a physical disk driver to a guest OS. The VD can max of 2 TB.
Virtual Disk Types :
1) RAW Disk
2) Thick Disk
3) Zero Thick Disk
4) Eager Zero Thick Disk
5) Thin Disk
RAW Disk : A raw disk is referred to as raw device mapping(RDM) and it enables a VM to have direct access to LUN on SAN. This means the actual VD is store on LUN and a RDM file is create on host EXSi server.
Thick Disk : All space is allocacted at creation time. It means when you create a VD of 40GB an entire 40GB space is reserved from this physical disk. These disk are less secure because, their disk block have bot been cleared of previous data.
Zeroed Thick Disk : All space is allocated at the time of creation and the disk is wiped clean of previous data. As the space is used, data is zeroed out on demand.
Eager Zeroed Thick Disk : All space is allocaed at the time of creation and disk is wiped clean of previous data. When this disk is created all data is zeroed out. It takes more time for creation of this disk but are faster when writing data.
Thin Disk : This this does not take the entire disk space. It start small and grows as data is written to the size specified. This disk space disk space and are faster.
VM Files
------------
vmware.log : this files keeps a logs of vmware activities and are used for troubleshooting
.nvram = this files act as BIOS of virtual machine
.vmdk = this is the actual VD which stores VM OS.
.vmx = this file store the configuration setting of a virtual machine
.vmsd = this file store vm snapshot information and metadata
.vmsn = this file store snapshot state of a virtual machine.
What is VMware DataStore
=======================
A datastore is used by vmware as a storage container for files. the datastore could be on a local server or on FC or iSCSI SAN or NFS. Inside the datasotre you will find your virtual machines. When a install an EXSi host on a physical disk of say 500 GB the entire 500GB is used as a datastore on that ESXi host. You can create multiple datastore depending on the number of disk installed on the server or entire storage devices attacted to the network.
Virtual Machine File Systems (VMFS)
=============================
VMFS is called as cluster file systems. It was developed and is used to store VM disk images, including snapshots. Multiple server can r/w the same filesystem simultaneously, while individual VM files are locked. VMFS
VMFS Version :
--------------------
VMFS version 1 = use by ESX 1.x and does not have cluster filesystems
VMFS version 2 = used by ESX 2.x and 3.x.
VMFS version 3 = used by ESX 3.x and vSphere 4.x
VMFS version 5 = used by EXXi 5.x. It introduced a new feature of 1MB block size to support larger file size. It support a file size upto 2 TB.
Limitation of VMFS
===============
Can be shared with up to 64 EXS/EXSi host
Can support LUN with max size of 64TB
The limit of 130690 files can be stored on a single datastore
No comments:
Post a Comment