Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) controllers

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article includes supplemental information about configuring and using VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters.

PVSCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that can result in greater throughput and lower CPU utilization. PVSCSI adapters are best for environments, especially SAN environments, where hardware or applications drive a very high amount of I/O throughput. The VMware PVSCSI adapter driver is also compatible with the Windows Storport storage driver. PVSCSI adapters are not suitable for DAS environments.

Important requirements

Virtual Machine with hardware version 7 or later.
Windows or Linux guest operating system that is published as support on VCG showing that PVSCSI is a supported feature the combination of OS release and ESXi release.
For a Linux guest operating system, it is recommended to use the PVSCSI driver included in the OS kernel from the OS vendor/community.
Linux operating systems that include the PVSCSI driver are RHEL 6 or later, SLES 11SP1 or later and Ubuntu 10.04 or later.
RHEL 5, CentOS 5 and Oracle Linux 5 are also supported by using the PVSCSI driver provided with VMware Tools, but this is restricted to data disks only.

Note: For more information on the supported OS type including validating the PVSCSI compatibility, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

The default type of newly hot-added SCSI adapter depends on the type of primary (boot) SCSI controller. This means that hot-adding a PVSCSI adapter is only supported for those versions that supports booting from a PVSCSI adapter.

VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters also have these limitations:

Hot add or hot remove requires a bus rescan from within the guest.
Disks with snapshots might not experience performance gains when used on Paravirtual SCSI adapters if memory on the ESXi host is over committed.
If you upgrade from RHEL 5 to an unsupported kernel, you might not be able to access data on the virtual machine's PVSCSI disks. You can run vmware-config-tools.pl with the kernel-version parameter to regain access.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Resolution

To configure a new disk to use a PVSCSI controller:

Launch the vSphere Client and log in to an ESXi host or vCenter Server.

Select a virtual machine or create a new one.
In the vSphere Client, right-click on the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
Click the "Virtual Hardware" tab.
Click "Add New Device".
Click "SCSI Controller"
Select the newly-added SCSI Controller
Click on "Change Type"
Select "VMware Paravirtual"
Select "Hard Disk"
Click on "Add New Device" again
Click "Hard Disk"
Select the newly-added Disk (New Hard Disk)
On the "Virtual Device Node" section, select the newly-added SCSI Controller
If you need to connect the disk to a specific SCSI port (SCSI ID), select that, too.
Specify any other desired configuration
Click OK

The disk is now ready to be formatted and consumed in the Guest Operating System.

Note: VMware recommends that Customers should ensure that they keep VMware Tools up to date at all times to ensure optimal performance. It is a good idea to update the VMware Tools at this point.

To configure an existing disk to use a PVSCSI controller:

Note: If the virtual machine does not have a PVSCSI controller and Drivers install, please install or reinstall the VMware Tools. Verify that the installation/reinstallation process includes "Paravirtual SCSI" as part of the bits to install. This is very important especially if you are changing the OS Boot Disk to use the PVSCSI Controller type.

This procedure is required because the PVSCSI driver is not native to some version of the Windows Operating System and the guest will experience a BSOD on boot if using the process described below.

Important: Remember that after configuring the boot disk to use a PVSCSI controller, if you uninstall VMware tools, the VM will fail to boot successfully as it no longer has the required driver installed.

Launch the vSphere Client and log in to an ESXi host or vCenter Server.

Select the existing virtual machine for which you want to change Controllers.
Ensure that the virtual machine is powered off
In the vSphere Client, right-click on the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
Click the "Virtual Hardware" tab.
Click "Add New Device".
Click "SCSI Controller"
Select the newly-added SCSI Controller
Click on "Change Type"
Select "VMware Paravirtual"
Select the existing Disk
On the "Virtual Device Node" section, select the newly-added SCSI Controller
If you need to connect the disk to a specific SCSI port (SCSI ID), select that, too.
Specify any other desired configuration
Click OK
Power on the virtual machine
The disk is now ready to be formatted and consumed in the Guest Operating System.

To deploy and boot a new Windows virtual machine from a disk attached to a PVSCSI controller, the VMware PVSCSI driver must be installed in the Windows guest. Floppy disk images that contain the driver are available for the versions of ESXi that support this. The required floppy images and VMware tools ISO images are stored on the host and are located at the /vmimages/floppies/, /vmimages/tools-isoimages directories separately. If the floppy images are not visible, see Unable to mount a floppy image in vCenter Server (311612). VMware tools ISO images can also be downloaded from web.

To install PVSCSI drivers through CD/DVD drive (Recommended):

When Windows installation proceeds to the step of selecting drive to install Windows, it shows "No drives were found." Follow the below steps to install PVSCSI driver.

In the vSphere Client, right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
Click the "Virtual Hardware" tab.
Click "Add New Device".
Click "CD/DVD Drive".
Select the newly added CD/DVD Drive.
Select "Datastore ISO File".
In the "CD/DVD Media" option, click Browse.
Navigate to the /vmimages/tools-isoimages or the path of the downloaded VMware tools ISO image file.
Select the image and click Ok.
Make sure the "Connected" button is checked for the newly added CD/DVD drive.
Go back to the console of this VM.
Click Load Driver and Browse.
Click CD Drive (E:) and select the path of PVSCSI driver (refer to below Note)
Click Ok and install the selected PVSCSI driver.
Proceed to install the OS.

Notes:

VMware Tools version is 10.0.x or earlier, PVSCSI driver path is:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > amd64.

VMware Tools version is 10.1.0 through 11.1.5, PVSCSI driver path is:
Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008R2, 32bit/64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Vista > i386/amd64.

Windows 8, 8.1, 10, 11, Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025 32bit/64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Win8 > i386/amd64.

VMware Tools version is 11.2.0 through 11.3.5, PVSCSI driver path is:
Windows 7 SP1, and Windows Server 2008R2 SP1, 32bit/64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Vista > i386/amd64.

Windows 8, 8.1, 10, 11, Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025 32bit/64bit
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Win8 > i386/amd64.

VMware Tools version is 12.0.0 and later, PVSCSI driver path is:
Windows 7 SP1, and Windows Server 2008R2 SP1, 32bit/64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Win7 > i386/amd64.

Windows 8, 8.1, 10, Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016, and 2019 32bit/64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Win8 > i386/amd64.

Windows 11, Windows Server 2022, and 2025 64bit:
Program Files > VMware > VMware Tools > Drivers > pvscsi > Win10 > amd64.