VMFS 3.31 vs 3.46

[pfuhli]

Hi,

does anyone know about the changes from VMFS v3.31 to 3.46?

Are the improvements worth upgrading a whole bunch of 80 datastores?

Regards,

daniel

[AndreTheGiant]

You can leave the ESX 3.5 filesystem.

A new feature (of 3.33) was optimistic IO.

Have a look at:

http://malaysiavm.com/blog/vmware-vmfs-versioning/

http://www.vfrank.org/2010/01/31/vmfs-3-versions-maybe-you-should-upgrade-your-vmfs/

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1005325

Andre

[a_p_]

I agree with AndreTheGiant. No need to upgrade. From what I heard (hearsay) there were some performance enhancements between 3.21 and 3.31, however since you are already on 3.31 it won't affect you.

One of the changes in 3.46:

from http://vsphere-land.com/news/tidbits-on-the-new-vsphere-41-release.html

The VMFS disk format has been upgraded from version 3.33 (vSphere 4.0) to version 3.46 (vSphere 4.1), like some prior updates this one is minor and not worth re-creating your VMFS volumes for. The new VMFS driver (not the disk format) in vSphere 4.1 includes new storage offloading algorithms which are introduced in vSphere 4.1 via VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration).

André

[qwert1235]

Daniel,

One more note:

Storage I/O Control in vSphere 4.1 will work only for Datastores with VMFS 3.46 format.

If you want to use Storage I/O Control you have to upgrade your datastores (they - VMware - do not mentioned it anywhere).

good luck,

qwert

As RParker noticed bellow, it's INCORRECT info. You can use Storage I/O Control not only with VMFS 3.46 format.

Message was edited by: qwert1235

[RParker]

Storage I/O Control in vSphere 4.1 will work only for Datastores with VMFS 3.46 format.

INCORRECT. I just checked (because we haven't done any NEW 4.1 installs of Datastores) and I have 4.1 server, with a 3.33 VMFS version, I can ENABLE Storage I/O just fine.

[qwert1235]

Let me check it again.... but I thought it's what was stopping us from enable Storage I/O Control....

[RParker]

Let me check it again...

Feel free, but Storage I/O is an OS function, not a datastore function. I haven't found a feature yet (in almost 4 years) that ISN'T working with newer ESX. And I still have a couple of 3.31 datastores...

[qwert1235]

RParker,

You are right. I provided wrong information.

You can use Storage I/O control not only on 3.46 datastores, but on older version as well.

I apologize for any inconveniences.

Thanks,

qwert

[macgreen]

For me I have noticed the following differences.

On my SAN increase the size of a presented disk to my ESX hosts and this is the result. After rescanning the HBA's on my ESX4.1 hosts

- Cannot increase the size of a 3.31 vmfs datastore in vsphere 4.1. The button in the datastore properties dialog is greyed out.

- A new 3.46 datastore can be increased.

BTW Both of the LUNs in the Storage Adapters views are updated to show the device capacity with the newly added space.