Disabling Hardware Accelerated Move (XCOPY) in ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

XCOPY is used to copy/migrate data within the same physical Storage Array. 
It enables the Storage arrays to make full copies of data within the array without having the host HBAs read and write the data.
This operation reduces the Time and Network/SAN load when cloning Virtual Machines, provisioning from a Template, or migrating with Storage vMotion.
Disabling XCOPY as outlined below will result in losing these benefits.

"XCOPY is one of the VAAI primitives that is used for offloading tasks to the storage array.
For example, you can use XCOPY to offload such operations as migration or cloning of virtual machines to the array
instead of consuming vSphere resources to perform these tasks."
Reference Broadcom Docs

XCOPY is also called: Full copy, Clone Blocks

 

Environment

vSphere ESXi 7.x
vSphere ESXi 8.x

 

Resolution

XCOPY is being set in ESXi via the config parameter HardwareAcceleratedMove

 

HardwareAcceleratedMove can be disabled on the ESXi Host via:

 

 

A.) Via Command:

esxcli system settings advanced set --int-value 0 --option /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove

 

B.) Via vSphere Web Client: 

1. 1. Browse to the Host in the vSphere Web Client navigator.
   2. Click the Configure tab.
   3. Under System, click Advanced System Settings.
   4. Change the value for DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedMove to 0 (= disabled)

 

 

No matter which options chosen, the setting is effective immediately without requiring any Host reboot or mount/unmount of Storage.

 

Additional Information

This is a list of commonly used SCSI opcodes related to VAAI operations:

 

0x93	WRITE SAME(16)
0x41	WRITE SAME(10)
0x42	UNMAP
0x89	SCSI COMPARE and WRITE - ATS
0x83	EXTENDED COPY

 

In the case of NVMe Devices used as related Storage:

XCOPY is supported on NVMe devices since 8.0 U3 ( Reference "Hardware accelerated move (clone operation) support on NVMe devices" )