Number virtual machines over datastore NFS

[juavalga]

Hi,

The maximum number of virtual machines over a datastore iSCSI/SAN to have a good performance is between 10 or 15 it. Is it the same over a datastore NFS?

Thanks.

[weinstein5]

really that is a target it all depends on the what type of disk load the vms put on the datastore, the load on the network - so its diffifcult to say -

[Kevin_Gao]

Don't think so considering NFS doesn't have the same performance...

By default you can only have 8 stores at a time and I'd stick with that rule. You can bump it up by going into your Configuration and then Advanced Settings (under NFS). Absolute max is 32...

FYI - I heard that NetApp has some good NFS devices that can compete with iSCSI SAN's for performance.

[Rumple · Accepted solution]

Alot depends on your storage subsystem. The recommended for vmfs volumes on FC or iscsi is still in the 10-15 range because scsi reservations happen at the lun level causing the entire volume to freeze for a second (or less)

With NFS, the locking is at the file level so you can scale much higher. I've talked to netapp engineers who are running a full disk aggregate on 15k disk and they are not seeing performance issues running 50-80 VM's on a single NFS mount...

Of course that totally depends on the type of VM you have too.