{"id":4002,"date":"2018-07-27T17:06:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T22:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/?p=4002"},"modified":"2023-10-04T17:53:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T22:53:21","slug":"vsan-and-other-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/vsan-and-other-storage\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding vSAN \u2013 Can it be used with Traditional or vVols Storage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On a call today this question came up: &#8220;Can vSAN be used with other storage?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is a very <strong>common<\/strong> question, covered in the vSAN FAQ on <a href=\"http:\/\/storagehub.vmware.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">storagehub.vmware.com<\/a>, as well in other publicly facing VMware.com documentation.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The answer is an absolute <strong>YES!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A vSAN Cluster<\/strong> <em>can also<\/em> use traditional datastores and\/or use vVols. This doesn&#8217;t mean that vSAN can use traditional storage or vVols to back disk groups, but rather that a vSAN Cluster can also consume traditional or vVols based storage <em><strong>along side vSAN<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Why wouldn&#8217;t this be supported?<\/p>\n<p>This support is very desirable by customers who routinely use multiple storage types, for different use cases, and connected to a vSphere cluster.<\/p>\n<p>Situations such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Continuing to be able to use existing storage investments that are still supported<\/li>\n<li>Migrating from a soon to be retired legacy storage platform<\/li>\n<li>Using a combination of vSAN <em>and<\/em> vVols<\/li>\n<li>and more&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are very desirable and advantageous to VMware customers.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Traditional datastores can be used just as they have, or they can also be rolled into VMware&#8217;s Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) like vSAN and vVols. There are several articles on VirtualBlocks covering SPBM that go further into this.<\/p>\n<p>A couple recent articles include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/2018\/07\/19\/how-is-spbm-different-to-tag-based-placement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How is SPBM Different to Tag-Based Placement?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/2018\/07\/26\/using-tag-based-spbm-policies-to-manage-your-storage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Using Tag-based SPBM Policies to Manage Your Storage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/files\/2018\/07\/spbm-graphic.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-12724 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/files\/2018\/07\/spbm-graphic.png\" alt=\"traditional datastores\" width=\"342\" height=\"289\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/files\/2018\/07\/spbm-graphic.png 342w, https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/files\/2018\/07\/spbm-graphic-201x170.png 201w, https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/files\/2018\/07\/spbm-graphic-225x190.png 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 342px) 100vw, 342px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A bigger question for the virtualization and storage admins reading this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Why aren&#8217;t you using SPBM for your vSphere storage?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>vSAN has a few different &#8220;deployment models&#8221; when it comes to hardware:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dellemc.com\/vxrail\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dell EMC VxRail<\/a> Appliances<\/li>\n<li>vSAN <a href=\"http:\/\/vsanreadynode.vmware.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ReadyNodes<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bring your own with components on the <a href=\"http:\/\/vmwa.re\/vsanhclc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">vSAN VCG<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With vSAN being IP-based inter-node HCI storage, VMkernel interfaces handle the communications between vSAN nodes. Because they are IP-based, NFS and iSCSI based traditional storage can also be easily consumed by any of the above deployment models.<\/p>\n<p>Traditional storage that is being consumed using Fibre Channel, would require an additional HBA\/Adapter, and wouldn&#8217;t be supported in chassis\/appliances that either cannot physically accommodate them, or simply do not allow them from a support perspective. So keep that in consideration.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Unlike some of the other vendors in the HCI space, VMware <em>fully supports<\/em> using vSAN alongside other supported vSphere storage.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Does your HCI vendor give you this flexibility?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was originally posted on the VMware Virtual Blogs site: https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/virtualblocks\/2018\/07\/27\/vsan-and-other-storage\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a call today this question came up: &#8220;Can vSAN be used with other storage?&#8221; This is a very common question, covered in the vSAN &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,152,224],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tags","tag-vsan","tag-vvol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4004,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions\/4004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}