vSphere 8 uses VMFS version 8.
VMFS 8 is the latest version of VMware’s Virtual Machine File System, which is used to store virtual machine disk files on shared storage. It offers the following new features.
vSphere 8 VMFS version 8 new features:
Larger block size: Supports block size of 64 MB to enhance performance for larger virtual disks.
Scalability improvements: Can manage up to 64,000 virtual machines per datastore, and support datastore sizes up to 64 TB.
Improved storage efficiency: Includes new data structures to reduce storage overhead and improve space utilization.
Faster file creation: Improves the time required to create large files by using the new data structures.
Improved virtual machine snapshots: Offers faster and more efficient handling of snapshots.
Support for larger NUMA nodes: Can handle larger NUMA nodes for better scalability on large hosts.
Improved security: Includes enhanced security features such as support for secure boot, secure firmware and secure vSAN encryption.
Is VMFS version 7 available?
No, VMFS version 7 is not available. The latest version of VMFS is version 8, as released with vSphere 8.
Why VMware didn’t release VMFS 7 version?
VMware has not publicly stated why they did not release a VMFS 7 version. It is possible that the company chose to skip version 7 and go straight to version 8 for internal reasons or as part of their versioning strategy. Regardless, the new features and enhancements in VMFS 8 provide significant improvements over previous versions and support the latest vSphere features.
Read also: Can we update VMFS version from 5 to 6 while the VMs running on the datastore?
Difference between VMFS 6 and VMFS 8?
As mentioned in the above, almost the similar features are described below.
The main differences between VMFS 6 and VMFS 8 are:
Block size: VMFS 8 supports larger block size of 64 MB, compared to 1 MB in VMFS 6, which enhances performance for larger virtual disks.
Scalability: VMFS 8 can manage up to 64,000 virtual machines per datastore, compared to a maximum of 30,000 in VMFS 6, and supports datastore sizes up to 64 TB, compared to 62 TB in VMFS 6.
Storage efficiency: VMFS 8 includes new data structures to reduce storage overhead and improve space utilization, compared to VMFS 6.
File creation: VMFS 8 improves the time required to create large files, compared to VMFS 6.
Virtual machine snapshots: VMFS 8 offers faster and more efficient handling of snapshots, compared to VMFS 6.
NUMA support: VMFS 8 can handle larger NUMA nodes for better scalability on large hosts, compared to VMFS 6.
Security: VMFS 8 includes enhanced security features such as support for secure boot, secure firmware, and secure vSAN encryption, compared to VMFS 6.