How a virtual disk is stored: a descriptor file and data on NFS or VMFS, or a vSAN object.
Also called Virtual Machine Disk.
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Terms in this definition
- NFS
Network File System, a file-sharing protocol from the Unix world, available on Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files and Blob Storage (as NFSv3).
- VMFS
Clustered file system for block datastores, whether the storage is iSCSI, local or FC-attached. Unlike VMFS5, VMFS6 can use 4Kn devices and reclaims freed space by itself.
- vSAN object
vSAN stores each VM as objects (home namespace, swap, every disk, snapshots), and each is broken into components that its storage policy places across hosts.
Related terms
- Storage DRS
Uses Storage vMotion and VMDK anti-affinity rules to choose where new VMs go and to keep space usage even across all datastores in a datastore cluster.
- vSphere Virtual Volumes
Deprecated in vSphere 9.0, this framework has the array, through VASA, hold every virtual machine disk as an individual volume, grouped into storage containers.