Swap file locoly on ESX server or on SAN

[belanger74]

Hi,

What's the best practice for the swap file with VSphere. Locoly on ESX server or on SAN?

Thanks,

Yan

[athlon_crazy · Accepted solution]

You mean, VMs swap file? If you have adequate Shared Storage space, keeping swap files inside Shared Storage can reduce latency and eleminates the need to move swap files during DRS & vMotion.

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

[kooltechies]

Swap files should always be storaed at SAN , as this is one of the requirements for vmotion , DRS. Keeping VMs on SAN and Swap on Local is not a best practice all the vm's files should be in one folder in a datastore.

Thanks,

Samir

P.S : If you think that the answer is helpful please consider rewarding points.

[AndreTheGiant]

Swap files should always be storaed at SAN

Usually true for iSCSI and FC storage.

But on some documents there could be different consideration about swap file on a NFS datastore:

http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1157

Anyway in last documentation is suggest to put swap file on a fast and shared datastore.

Andre

[bulletprooffool]

Depends on your config

Generally, shared storage is best as it allows Vmotion to happen quicker (Local storage can still allow vMotion . . it just takes longer as the Swap file has to move)

In some instance though, like when you have NFS storage, or if you have a VM that has memory limits, far lower than allocated memory, it may swap a lot, so you'd want to use the quickest storage that you have.