Maximum number of ESXi hosts sharing the same NFS datastore

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• This article is created to provide guidance on mounting an NFS datastore across many ESXi hosts, more than the limit specified in the vSphere Maximum Configuration Guide.
• This article is limited to scalability of NFS only. 
  
  

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Resolution

The maximum number of ESXi hosts that can have access to the same NFS datastore is currently limited by the number mentioned in the “Hosts per NFS mount” field in the Recommended Configuration Maximums Guide.

Any other vSphere components and solutions may have their own limits which needs to be referred before deploying.

Follow the guidelines mentioned below if there is a requirement to access a datastore across more than the maximum number of recommended hosts :

• Solutions such as SIOC/SDRS, FCD, HA or any vSphere components and solutions in general may have their own limits. The functionality and performance of the solutions may get impacted if the datastore is shared across more than maximum number of recommended hosts. If such solutions are deployed in the environment, then the maximum number of hosts that can mount the same share is limited to the number mentioned in the section "Hosts per NFS mount" in Recommended Configuration Maximums Guide.
• If one intends to use vSphere's NFS functionality without using any other vSphere solutions, which have a dependency on the number of hosts per mount, then contact NFS server vendors for the supportability of the limits..