> Although I understood the difference I did not understand when to use them.
Let me add some important details that you do not hear every where:
In case you use a standalone ESXi host with local storage only and you run into a problem with the VMFS-filesystem the major difference between the 3 types is:
| provisioning type | chances to recover after a VMFS-corruption |
|---|---|
| Eager zeroed thick | good - if the vmdk is not fragmented it can be recovered without any loss |
| Lazy zeroed thick | good - if the vmdk is not fragmented it can be recovered but the result is dirty |
| Thin | very poor - a thin provisioned vmdk without healthy VMFS-metadata is nothing but a large pile of garbage |
Ulli