Provisioning a lazyZeroedThick managed virtual disk on NFS datastore has vCenter Server reporting the disk as thin
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Provisioning a lazyZeroedThick managed virtual disk on NFS datastore has vCenter Server reporting the disk as thin

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Article ID: 340272

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

On most NFS servers, the default virtual disk format is thin. However, you can create a thick-provisioned virtual disk on an NFS datastore if your NFS storage array supports thick provisioning through vSphere APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). Your ability to create a thick-provisioned disk depends on whether the VAAI plug-in is installed on your ESXi host and on vendor-specific implementation of the plug-in.
If you attempt to create a thick-provisioned disk on the NFS datastore that does not support thick provisioning, the disk is created in thin format.


Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

VMware vSphere 6.7.x

VMware vSphere 7.x

VMware vSphere 8.x

Resolution

For information about support of thick provisioning on your NFS storage, contact your storage vendor.
 
To identify the if VAAI plugin is installed on the host 
 
  • SSH to the esxi host 
  • run 'esxcli software vib list'  and look for the storage vendor specific nas plugin

Additional Information

If NFS plugin is already installed on host with latest compatible according to HCL and still not reserving vm disk as thick then next step is to engage with storage vendor to investigate to further.