Datastore Maximum

[tsut]

I have a 12 TB drive array attached. With a RAID 6 configuration I'm able to get 9.09 TB of usable space. Using ESXi 4.1 is the maximum datastore size 2 TB? I can't find documentation stating the maximum size for a datastore.

[RParker · Accepted solution]

Yes max size for a datastore is 2TB - 512B header

[tsut]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why there is a 2TB limit? Seems a little small when considering the size of SANs these days.

[sridharan83]

The LUN size can be 2TB -512B but the datastore can be of 64TB -512B. Refer to the following document for maximums... Configuration Maximums

[DSTAVERT]

I think the 512 bytes is per LUN. The 64 TB would be minus the accumulated 512 per LUN.

[sridharan83]

I agree with David, it will be 64TB -16K

[Josh26]

Hi,

To answer your question, the 2TB limit is there because it is the limit of an MBR-style partition.

Under Windows, creating a larger partition involves doing a "convert to GPT disk" process. VMWare has no such process as yet.

Yes, it's a small limit, but in a lot of cases it stops you doing dumb things. Storing 50 x 100GB VMs on one datastore for example, would be a dumb thing.

[thakala]

It is because ESX uses SCSI-2 protocol which limits LUN size mapping to 32-bit, see more at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/3371739