NFS datastores: Hard or soft mounted NFS share to hosts?

[RobFredette7]

Hi,

We have a NetApp appliance we deployed as a vSphere datastore, mounted as an NFS share to our hosts.
NetApp recommends that when possible, NFS shares should be configured as a 'hard" mount. I have done a bit of Googling, checking VMware KBs, checking the configuration in the vSphere client, and attempting to find how the NFS shares are mounted on a host via an SSH session to the host. However, I have yet to determine if vSphere uses a hard or soft mount when using NFS storage as a datastore.

Below is an example mount command NetApp support provides for hard and soft mounting of NFS shares:
Hard NFS mount:
mount -o rw,hard,intr host.server.com/home /mymountpoint

Soft NFS mount:
mount -o rw,soft host.server.com/home /mymountpoint

My question is, does anyone out here know if when creating a datastore from an NFS share, is the share a hard or soft mount on the hosts?

Thanks,
Ken

[RajeevVCP4]

there is no hard and soft parameter from vmware if you are able to see (NetApp VSC) plugin then here are steps

1. From the vSphere Web Client Home page, click Hosts and Clusters:

2. In the navigation pane, expand the data center that contains the host:

3. Right-click the host, and then select NetApp VSC > Mount Data stores.

4. Select the data stores that you want to mount, and then click OK.

[RobFredette7]

Hi Rajeev,

Thank you for the response. 

The NetApp VSC plugin is not installed. The datastore in question was created by mapping the hosts to the NFS share presented by the NetApp array. The reason I am wondering if this is a hard or soft NFS mount is when we upgraded out NetApp OS, one of the warnings presented during the upgrade was to assure that NFS shares were hard mounted, if possible. 

If I understand your reply correctly, when creating a datastore, vSphere does not mount NFS shares as hard or soft mounted, correct? This is what I am attempting to determine since we will always be presented with that warning when we upgrade our NetApp array. If this is the case, it appears to be a non-issue if the NFS share is a vSphere datastore.

Thanks,
Ken

[RajeevVCP4]

Hi Ken

As I know hard and soft mount can done only from Netapp side here are some use full KB

https://kb.netapp.com/onprem/ontap/da/NAS/What_are_the_differences_between_hard_mount_and_soft_mount

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.hostclient.doc/GUID-9F526FAE-A72E-4...