VMware Virtual Machine and ESXi Maximums:

Every product has its limits, and same is applied to VMware vSphere. In this blog, I am sharing the maximum supported configuration of three recent versions of vSphere – 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5. This information is very useful in Solution Designing and Infrastructure Planning phase. Although there are very few chances that we reach this limit still it should be known so that during configure of virtual and physical equipment, we must stay at or below the maximums supported values by VMware vSphere (ESXi maximums).

Virtual Machine Maximums:

This table shows the maximum limits of Virtual Machine (VM) components like vCPU, vMEM, Virtual Disk, vNIC and Graphic video device memory.

Virtual Machine Parameters ESXi 5.5 ESXi 6.0 ESXi 6.5 vCPUs per VM 64 128 128 RAM per VM 1 TB 4 TB 6 TB Virtual disk size per VM 62 TB 62 TB 62 TB Virtual NICs per VM 10 10 10 Virtual SCSI adapters per VM 4 4 4 Virtual SCSI targets per VM 60 60 60 Virtual NVMe adapters per VM - - 4 Virtual NVMe targets per VM - - 60 Video memory per VM 512 MB 512 MB 2 GB

Compute Maximums (ESXi Maximums):

ESXi Host maximum represents the top limit of ESXi parameters like maximum CPU Core, logical CPUs, Memory etc.

Compute Parameters ESXi 5.5 ESXi 6.0 ESXi 6.5 Logical CPUs per host 320 480 576 NUMA Nodes per host 16 16 16 Virtual machines per host 512 1024 1024 Virtual CPUs per host 4096 4096 4096 Virtual CPUs per core 32 32 32 RAM per host 4 TB 12 TB 12 TB

ESXi Storage Maximums:

Storage related maximum configurations of VMware ESXi are part of below table.

ESXi Storage Parameters ESXi 5.5 ESXi 6.0 ESXi 6.5 Virtual Disks per Host 2048 2048 2048 LUNs per server 256 256 512 Software iSCSI NICs per server 8 8 8 Number of total paths per server 1024 1024 2048 Number of paths to a LUN (software+hardware iSCSI) 8 8 8 Software iSCSI targets 256 256 256 NAS: NFS mounts per host 256 256 256 FC: Number of HBAs of any type 8 8 8 Software FCoE adapters 4 4 4 VMFS Volume size 64 TB 64 TB 64 TB Volumes per host 256 256 512 Hosts per volume 64 64 64 Powered on virtual machines per VMFS

volume 2048 2048 2048 Concurrent vMotion operations per VMFS

volume 128 128 128

ESXi Networking Maximums:

Below table represents the maximum supported values of Networking related parameters like the number of NICs, switches, ports etc.

ESXi Networking Parameters ESXi 5.5 ESXi 6.0 ESXi 6.5 igb 1Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) 16 16 16 (ibgn) tg3 1Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom) 32 32 32 (ntg3) bnx2 1Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom) 16 16 16 ixgbe 10Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) 8 16 16 bnx2x 10Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom) 8 8 8 Combination of 10Gb and 1Gb ethernet ports Eight 10Gb and Four

1Gb ports Sixteen 10 Gb and four 1 Gb ports Sixteen 10 GB and four 1 GB ports mlx4_en 40GB Ethernet Ports (Mellanox) 4 4 4 (nmlx4_en) SR‐IOV Number of virtual functions 64 1024 1024 SR‐IOV Number of 10G pNICs 8 8 8 VSS portgroups per host 1000 1000 1000 Distributed switches per host 16 16 16 Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS

ports) 4096 4096 4096 Maximum active ports per host (VDS and VSS) 1016 1016 1016 Virtual network switch creation ports per standard switch 4088 4088 4088 Port groups per standard switch 512 512 512 Ports per distributed switch 60,000 60,000 60,000

The above limits are tested, recommended and fully supported by VMware. But It can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies. That’s why before taking any decision please check the hardware compatibility.

Ref: VMware vSphere Configuration Maximums (Link)

For Configuration Maximums of other products and solutions, like vCenter Server , vSAN, vCloud Directors, please read my next blogs.

Also if you liked my blog, please Share !!

–

Thanks

Like this: Like Loading...