vSphere Storage - ESXi 5.1 - Documentation - VMware
vSphere Storage - ESXi 5.1 - Documentation - VMware
vSphere Storage - ESXi 5.1 - Documentation - VMware
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Working with Datastores 17<br />
Datastores are logical containers, analogous to file systems, that hide specifics of each storage device and<br />
provide a uniform model for storing virtual machine files. Datastores can also be used for storing ISO images,<br />
virtual machine templates, and floppy images.<br />
You use the <strong>vSphere</strong> Client to access different types of storage devices that your <strong>ESXi</strong> host discovers and to<br />
deploy datastores on them.<br />
Depending on the type of storage you use, datastores can be backed by the following file system formats:<br />
n Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)<br />
n Network File System (NFS)<br />
After creating datastores, you can organize them in different ways. For example, you can group them into<br />
folders according to business practices. This allows you to assign the same permissions and alarms on the<br />
datastores in the group at one time.<br />
You can also add datastores to datastore clusters. A datastore cluster is a collection of datastores with shared<br />
resources and a shared management interface. When you create a datastore cluster, you can use <strong>Storage</strong> DRS<br />
to manage storage resources. For information about datastore clusters, see the <strong>vSphere</strong> Resource Management<br />
documentation.<br />
This chapter includes the following topics:<br />
n “Understanding VMFS Datastores,” on page 154<br />
n “Understanding NFS Datastores,” on page 158<br />
n “Creating Datastores,” on page 159<br />
n “Managing Duplicate VMFS Datastores,” on page 162<br />
n “Upgrading VMFS Datastores,” on page 165<br />
n “Increasing VMFS Datastore Capacity,” on page 167<br />
n “Rename VMFS or NFS Datastores in the <strong>vSphere</strong> Client,” on page 170<br />
n “Rename VMFS or NFS Datastores in the <strong>vSphere</strong> Web Client,” on page 170<br />
n “Group VMFS or NFS Datastores in the <strong>vSphere</strong> Client,” on page 170<br />
n “Unmount VMFS or NFS Datastores,” on page 171<br />
n “Mount VMFS Datastores,” on page 171<br />
n “Delete VMFS Datastores in the <strong>vSphere</strong> Client,” on page 172<br />
n “Remove VMFS Datastores in the <strong>vSphere</strong> Web Client,” on page 172<br />
n “Turn off <strong>Storage</strong> Filters,” on page 173<br />
<strong>VMware</strong>, Inc. 153