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What is VMware vSAN used for?

Author

James Holden

Published Mar 05, 2026

What is VMware vSAN used for?

VMware vSAN is a software defined storage solution from VMware to eliminate the need of the additional storage boxes using the local server storage. In simple words - vSAN abstracts the local storage of ESXi hosts and makes a pool of it to be used as a shared storage which is very much optimized.

Regarding this, what are primary features of VMware vSAN?

These features include snapshots, linked clones, vSphere Replication, and vSphere APIs for Data Protection. Virtual SAN works with VM storage policies to support a VM-centric approach to storage management.

Also Know, what is the difference between SAN and vSAN? Differences Between SAN and vSAN

vSAN only work with ESXi hosts, while SAN leverages storage protocols such as FCP and iSCSI. With a traditional SAN, storage administrators are required to pre-allocate storage on different systems, while vSAN automatically converts local storage resources into a single storage pool.

In this way, what are three valid vSAN editions?

There are three editions of regular vSAN- Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise.

Which is a benefit of vSAN?

The touted benefits of VSAN include: Performance, since the local server can access data at full speed and low latency. Lower infrastructure cost, since there are no networked storage appliances. High scalability -- simply put, add more servers and get more storage.

What type of storage is vSAN?

VMware vSAN is a software-defined, enterprise storage solution that supports hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) systems. vSAN is fully integrated with VMware vSphere, as a distributed layer of software within the ESXi hypervisor.

Is vSAN free?

StarWind Virtual SAN Free is the free version of StarWind VSAN, the popular software solution that eliminates any need for a SAN or NAS or other physical shared storage.

Is vSAN included in ESXi?

Even though you can run VSAN using Free ESXi and leveraging the default VM Storage Policy that is built into VSAN for protecting Virtual Machines, you are only exercising a tiny portion of the potential that VSAN can bring when consuming it through vCenter Server.

How does a vSAN work?

VMware vSAN uses a software-defined approach that creates shared storage for virtual machines. It virtualizes the local physical storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into pools of storage that can be divided and assigned to virtual machines and applications according to their quality-of-service requirements.

How do you implement vSAN?

Procedure
  1. Navigate to an existing cluster in the vSphere Web Client.
  2. Click the Configure tab.
  3. Under vSAN, select General and click the Configure button.
  4. Select vSAN capabilities.
  5. Click Next.
  6. On the Network validation page, check the settings for vSAN VMkernel adapters, and click Next.

Is vSAN HCI?

By all measures, vSAN is indeed a true HCI solution that lets you choose the deployment that best meets your environment, performance and budgetary needs. With vSAN, your infrastructure grows along with your business.

Does vSAN need vSphere?

vSphere licenses are required on the vSAN cluster to maintain a unified HCI management control plane. Note that the compute clusters require vSphere licenses, but do not require vSAN licenses.

What is vSAN vs vSphere?

VMware vSAN uses object-based storage architecture where each object represents a block of data within the underlying Virtual Machine (VM). A vSphere cluster is the primary management unit for the VMware vSAN. You can create a vSphere cluster as either an all-flash cluster or hybrid vSAN.

How is vSAN usable capacity calculated?

Use this formula to determine the raw capacity of a vSAN datastore. Multiply the total number of disk groups in the cluster by the size of the capacity devices in those disk groups. Subtract the overhead required by the vSAN on-disk format.

What is a vSAN node?

A VMware Virtual SAN Ready Node (vSAN Ready Node) is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) network appliance that is certified to run VMware vSAN. vSAN Ready Nodes are hyper-converged nodes, meaning that they are designed from scratch to support VMware vSAN.

Does VxRail use vSAN?

VxRail currently supports vSphere 6.0 and vSAN 6.2. This environment provides in-line data deduplication and compression functionality for all-flash data stores and virtual machine quality-of-service (QoS) policies. Administrators can assign application performance policies at a VM level.

What protocol is vSAN?

What storage protocols does vSAN support? E.g. iSCSI, NFS, etc. As vSAN only communicates with vSphere virtual machines, there's really no need for a standard storage protocol.

Is vSAN hyper converged?

vSAN is VMware's software-defined storage solution for hyperconverged infrastructure. vSAN is natively integrated with VMware vSphere, which manages compute resources, including storage. This means you can access and use traditional datastores along with hyperconverged storage—all in the same cluster.

Does nutanix use vSAN?

Even with Storage Only nodes running AHV, they integrate seamlessly to the Nutanix cluster and provide all the value almost immediately to the storage presented to the vSphere or Hyper-V cluster.

Scaling Storage Capacity – Nutanix vs VMware vSAN.

FeatureNutanixVMware vSAN
Storage Only Nodes✅✅

What is vSAN architecture?

vSAN is a hyper-converged storage software that is fully integrated with the hypervisor. vSAN creates a cluster of local ESXi host hard disk drives and solid state drives, and presents a flash-optimized, highly-resilient, shared storage datastore to ESXi hosts and virtual machines.

Is iSCSI a vSAN?

vSAN identifies each iSCSI target by a unique iSCSI qualified Name (IQN). You can use the IQN to present the iSCSI target to a remote iSCSI initiator so that the initiator can access the LUN of the target.

Is vSAN license perpetual?

VSAN licensing is perpetual unless you are the 1% of VMware users who are in the vCAN program (service providers, kind of like VSPP) or if purchased as part of EVO:RAIL (EVO:RAIL is OEM licensing and dies with the device). If you want free updates, you will need to keep your S&S current.

How much does VMware vSAN cost?

A license of vSAN 6.6 is not inexpensive, coming in three varieties: Standard at $2,495 per CPU, Advanced at $3,995 and Enterprise at $5,495. That's in addition to whatever vSphere licenses you need.

Do I need vSAN?

The goal of implementing VSAN is to cut down computing and storage costs along with eliminating latency in storage access with use of a load balanced setup. High availability is achieved by storage object replication including VMs, snapshots and VM swap disks in the cluster.

Does vSphere Essentials Plus include vSAN?

Essentials Plus HCI Kit. Comes with vSAN Standard. Potentially less cost.

What is a vSAN license?

You can assign a standard vSAN license to the cluster, or a license that covers advanced functions. Advanced features include RAID 5/6 erasure coding, and deduplication and compression. An enterprise license is required for encryption and stretched clusters.

What is vSAN for desktop?

Description. vSAN is enterprise-class, storage virtualization software that allows you to manage compute and storage with a single platform. With vSAN, you can reduce the cost and complexity of traditional storage and take the easiest path to hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid cloud.

How do I upgrade my vSAN license?

To start the vSAN Upgrade -> Click Upgrade. vSAN performs a rolling reformat of each disk group in the cluster. The On-disk Format Version column displays the disk format version of storage devices in the cluster.

When was vSAN introduced?

August 2013

Is vSAN any good?

vSAN is a software based storage solution that can VSAN is really nice, but lacks some optimizations and tiering mecanisms compared to Nutanix equivalent. We never had a real issue with VSAN, so I guess it is a good product !

Is vSAN a block storage?

vSAN does not behave like traditional storage volumes based on LUNs or NFS shares. The iSCSI target service uses LUNs to enable an initiator on a remote host to transport block-level data to a storage device in the vSAN cluster. Some standard storage protocols, such as FCP, do not apply to vSAN.

Can vSAN use external storage?

Virtual SAN does not support hosts participating in multiple Virtual SAN clusters. However, a Virtual SAN host can access other external storage resources that are shared across clusters. Virtual SAN does not support vSphere DPM and Storage I/O Control.

Is vSAN object based storage?

Object-Based Storage

vSAN stores and manages data in the form of flexible data containers called objects. An object is a logical volume that has its data and metadata distributed across the cluster.

What is San VMware?

A storage area network (SAN) is a dedicated, independent high-speed network that interconnects and delivers shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers. Each server can access shared storage as if it were a drive directly attached to the server.

How do virtual SANs work also explain their benefits?

There are some virtual SANs out on the market today that are capable of enabling shared storage across two or three server nodes. By duplicating data and applications across multiple servers, these solutions eliminate single points of failure, which enables high availability within IT infrastructures.

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