Storage that ESX hosts mount from an export on a NAS server, using either NFS 3 or NFS 4.1. All hosts sharing one such datastore need to use the same version.
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Terms in this definition
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - ESX
VMware's bare-metal hypervisor, installed on each host in a VCF fleet. Up to version 9.0 it was known as ESXi.
- NAS
Storage appliance serving files over a local network; Azure Files can stand in for or sit alongside it.
- NFS
Network File System, a file-sharing protocol from the Unix world, available on Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files and Blob Storage (as NFSv3).
- ALL
A DAX function that ignores any filters and gives back every row of a table or every value of the named columns. Used within CALCULATE, it works as a modifier that clears filters, although REMOVEFILTERS states that intent more clearly where it is available.
- Datastore
A named pointer in the workspace to Blob, Azure Files or ADLS Gen2 storage that keeps the connection details, so code never needs to carry storage keys itself.
Related terms
- Nutanix storage container
Carved logically from a storage pool, it contains vDisks and controls replication factor, erasure coding, deduplication and compression. Hyper-V mounts it as an SMB share; ESXi mounts it as an NFS datastore.
- VMkernel interface
An ESXi network interface used by the host's own services. To mount the vPower NFS datastore that Instant Recovery and virtual labs depend on, a host needs one with connectivity to the vPower NFS server.