vSphere HA with one DAS

[mattb007]

So settings up a vSphere HA with two Hosts with a dual controller DAS. I have one datastore that is setup on each host. both are identical in name. I am following the HA document   and it is asking for two data stores per host. My assumption is that I can make a SMALL datastore using local storage on each host (2GB) but I don't know what this is doing or how this works and im looking for guidance or resource.

Specific questions

How does vSphere HA work if vcenter is one the node that goes offline?

Is there any issue with creating a Datastore so small just for monitoring? 

Do i need to do anything special to flag it as a heartbeat datastore?

[depping]

If you want to use vSphere HA then you need to have shared storage! Meaning that 1 datastore needs to be accessible by both hosts at the same time. HA is not a data replication mechanism, it simply allows for restarting VMs which are running on shared storage!

[mattb007]

the same DAS is connected to Both Hosts. Both hosts see the same data regardless of the other host. Making a 2GB datastore just for heartbeating fixed this. i just wanted to try an understand HOW heartbeat works and if there was going to be anything wrong with creating a small Datastore just to fill the requirement.

[depping]

I am still not sure what you are trying to do, to be honest. datastore heartbeating by itself doesn't do much. I would recommend reading some of my HA material, freely available here: https://www.rubrik.com/resources/white-papers/19/clustering-deep-dive-ebook