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Will the vSphere 4 Upgrade Require Another VMFS Update?

When folks upgraded from VMware’s version 2 products into the ESX 3 world, the first step most took was to update their old VMFS 2 datastores to the new version 3 of VMFS. With all of the new storage capabilities introduced in the vSphere 4 family, many wondered if a similar upgrade hassle would be required.

This question was put to VMware’s  Paul Manning, author of the  What’s New in VMware vSphere 4: Storage  whitepaper, during episode 47 of the excellent weekly VMware  Community  Podcast hosted by John Troyer. Happily, the answer is no: The core on-disk VMFS format has undergone extremely minor changes, so there is no need to create new ones just for vSphere!  Paul did go on to say that the VMFS driver was extensively updated to allow things like thin provisioning, LUN and VMFS expansion, and such, but that the on-disk format stays mostly the same. Great news!

About the author

Stephen Foskett

Stephen Foskett is an active participant in the world of enterprise information technology, currently focusing on enterprise storage, server virtualization, networking, and cloud computing. He organizes the popular Tech Field Day event series for Gestalt IT and runs Foskett Services. A long-time voice in the storage industry, Stephen has authored numerous articles for industry publications, and is a popular presenter at industry events. He can be found online at TechFieldDay.com, blog.FoskettS.net, and on Twitter at @SFoskett.

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