Prerequisites
- Verify that the environment meets all hardware requirements. All hardware must be on the VMware HCL. Also all disks and HBA controller must be on the VMware vSAN-specific HCL.
- Ensure that vSAN networking has been configured. For more information, see Configuring vSAN VMkernel Networking.
- For best performance, the environment should be designed for the specific workload intended to be run on the cluster.
Enabling vSAN
Enabling vSAN creates a vSAN datastore and registers the vSAN storage provider. The vSAN storage provider communicates the storage capabilities of the datastore to vCenter Server. Currently, there are no third-party storage providers.
To enable vSAN on an existing cluster:
- Open the vSphere Web Client.
- Click the Hosts and Clusters tab.
- Select the cluster name intended to have vSAN enabled.
- Validate vSphere HA is disabled on the cluster via Configure > Services > vSphere Availability, if not then temporarily disable it (and re-enable it after enabling vSAN) via Configure > Services > vSphere Availability > Edit > slider to off > OK
- Click the Configure tab.
- Under vSAN, select Services, click Turn on vSAN, and then follow the wizard.
- Click OK.
Disabling vSAN
Warning: When disabling the vSAN cluster, all virtual machines located on the shared vSAN datastore become inaccessible. If intending to use a virtual machine while vSAN is disabled, make sure to migrate virtual machines from vSAN datastore to another datastore before disabling the vSAN cluster.
Note for stretched clusters (including 2-node), disable the stretch and remove the witness per the following documentation prior to the steps below.To disable vSAN on the cluster:
- Open the vSphere Web Client.
- Click the Hosts and Clusters tab.
- Select the cluster intended to have vSAN disabled.
- Validate vSphere HA is disabled on the cluster via Configure > Services > vSphere Availability, if not then temporarily disable it (and re-enable it after disabling vSAN) via Configure > Services > vSphere Availability > Edit > slider to off > OK
- Click the Configure tab.
- Under vSAN, select Services and click Turn off vSAN.
- Click OK.