Utilizing host local storage
vSphere 5.5 introduced a new feature called Virtual SAN (vSAN). This feature allows utilizing a host's local storage to create a shared distributed storage for VM placement.
vSAN is a software-based solution built into ESXi; it's scalable and easy to configure and manage.
Getting ready
vSAN requires a license separate from vSphere and vCenter. The feature is licensed on a per-CPU basis.
The minimum infrastructure requirements for vSAN are:
Each host that is a part of the vSAN cluster has to have at least one Solid State Disk (SSD) and one Hard Disk Drive (HDD).
At least three hosts with local storage are required.
At least 1 Gbps network ports are required.
Also, it is recommended to:
Use 10 Gbps NICs.
Have a VMkernel vSAN adapter on every physical NIC.
Have a 1:10 ratio between SSD and HDD capacity.
Hardware RAID is not required and it's better to have just a bunch of disks without any hardware RAID configured. Create more disk groups of a smaller size rather than less...
