Minimum free space on VMFS datastores - Best Practice

[MariusRoma]

How can I calculate the minimum free space to be left in VMFS datastores for a vSphere 5.5 cluster based on ESXi 5.5 hosts?

Is there a general best practice?

Regards

marius

[BenLiebowitz]

Can you tell us a little about your setup? 

What version vCenter/vSphere?  How is your network configured?  How is the network configured on the VMs in your Microsoft Cluster?  Etc...

Thanks.

[BenLiebowitz]

I think this is more of a Your Mileage May Vary situtation.  It depends on if you're doing thick or thin provisioning.  If you're doing thin provisioning, you want to make sure you leave enough free space incase someone decides to copy a large amount of data to a VM without any notice, etc. 

Here is a good KB for troubleshooting space issues on a datastore.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100341...