I'm personally a big fan of VMware Virtual Volumes concept. If you are not familiar with VVOLs check this blog post with the recording of VMworld session and read VMware KB Understanding Virtual Volumes (VVols) in VMware vSphere 6.0
We all know that the devil is always in details. The same is true with VVOLs. VMware prepared the conceptual framework but implementation always depends on storage vendors thus it varies around storage products.
Recently, I have had VVOLs discussion with one of my customers and he was claiming that their particular storage vendor supports a very small number of VVOLs. That discussion inspired me to do some research.
Please, note that numbers below are valid at the moment of writing this article. You should always check current status with your particular storage vendor.
We all know that the devil is always in details. The same is true with VVOLs. VMware prepared the conceptual framework but implementation always depends on storage vendors thus it varies around storage products.
Recently, I have had VVOLs discussion with one of my customers and he was claiming that their particular storage vendor supports a very small number of VVOLs. That discussion inspired me to do some research.
Please, note that numbers below are valid at the moment of writing this article. You should always check current status with your particular storage vendor.
| Vendor / Storage Array | Maximum VVOLs / Snapshots or Clones |
| DELL / Compellent SC 8000 | 2,000 / TBD |
| EMC / Unity 300 | 9,000 / TBD |
| EMC / Unity 400 | 9,000 / TBD |
| EMC / Unity 500 | 13,500 / TBD |
| EMC / Unity 600 | 30,000 / TBD |
| EMC / VMAX 3 | 64,000 / TBD |
| HPE / 3PAR | I have been told that it depends on specific model and firmware versions but it is roughly about 10,000 (the info gathered at November 2018) |
| Hitachi / VSP G200 | 2,000 / 100,000 |
| Hitachi / VSP G400 | 4,000 / 100,000 |
| Hitachi / VSP G600 | 4,000 / 100,000 |
| Hitachi / VSP G800 | 16,000 / 100,000 |
| Hitachi / VSP G1000 | 64,000 / 1,000,000 |
Numbers above are very important because single VM have minimally 3 VVOLs (home, data, swap) and usually even more (snapshot) or more data disks. If you will assume 10 VVOls for single VM you will end up with just 200 VMs on Dell Compellent or Hitachi VSP G200. On the other hand, EMC Unity 600 would give you up to 3,000 VMs which is not bad and enterprise storage systems (EMC VMAX and Hitachi G1000) would give you up to 6,400 VMs which is IMHO very good scalability.
So as always, it really depends on what storage system do you have or planning to buy.
If you know numbers for other storage systems, please share it in comments below this blog post.
Keywords: vvol, vvols, virtual volumes
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