Impact of Permanent vCenter Server Loss on ESXi Datastore Connectivity

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

To clarify the behavior of ESXi host storage connectivity—specifically regarding Datastores and Datastore Clusters—in the event that the managing vCenter Server is permanently lost or unrecoverable for an extended period (e.g., 180+ days).

Question: If vCenter is permanently lost, do ESXi hosts eventually lose access to datastores that were previously managed as a Datastore Cluster, or do connections remain active at the ESXi host level?

Environment

vSphere ESXi 7.x
vSphere ESXi 8.x
vSphere ESXi 9.x

Resolution

ESXi hosts will NOT lose access to their datastores. There is no expiration timer, timeout, or dependency within the ESXi hypervisor that drops storage connections simply because vCenter is offline. ESXi hosts will continue to access their datastores indefinitely.

A Datastore Cluster is strictly a vCenter management construct used to enable Storage DRS (SDRS). Because vCenter is offline:

• Datastore Clusters Dissolve Locally: At the individual ESXi host level, the concept of the Datastore Cluster does not exist. The host will simply display the individual, underlying datastores that made up the cluster.

• Storage DRS is Disabled: Automatic balancing of storage capacity and I/O latency (Storage vMotion) will no longer occur.

• VM Workloads Continue: Virtual machines running on these datastores will continue to function, read, and write data normally.