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Configuration Maximums

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VMware vSphere Configuration maximums. On this page, you'll find the latest version of vSphere configuration maximums compared to some previous release. Check out our detailed vSphere 6.7 page.

When you select and configure your virtual and physical equipment, you must stay at or below the maximums supported by vSphere 6.5. The limits presented in the following sections represent tested, recommended limits, and are fully supported by VMware.

The limits can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies.

The virtual machine maximums represent limits applicable to compute, memory, storage virtual adapters and devices, network virtual devices, virtual peripheral ports, and graphics video device.

If more than one configuration options (such as a number of virtual machines, number of LUNs, and a number of VDS ports) are used at their maximum limit, some of the processes running on the host might run out of memory.

This might cause the host to keep disconnecting from the vCenter Server. In such a case, you need to increase the memory pool for these host processes so that the host can withstand the workload you are planning.

  • VM maximums
  • Host maximums
  • Network maximums
  • Storage maximums
  • Fault Tolerance maximums
  • vSAN maximums
  • vCenter Server maximums
  • Cluster and Resource Pool maximums

Virtual Machine Maximums

vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0  5.5 5.1  5.0
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine 256 256* 128 128 64 64 32
RAM per virtual machine 6TB  6TB 6TB 4TB 1TB 1TB 1TB
Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine 4  4 4 4 4 4 4
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter 64  64 15 15 15
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine 256  256 60 60 60
Virtual NVMe adapters per virtual machine 4  4 4
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual SCSI adapter 15  15 15
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual machine 60  60 60
Virtual SATA adapters per virtual machine 4  4 4 4 4
Virtual SATA devices per virtual SATA adapter 30  30 30 30 30
Virtual disk size 62TB  62TB 62TB 62TB 62TB 2TB 2TB
IDE controllers per virtual machine 1  1 1 1 1 1 1
IDE devices per virtual machine 4  4 4 4 4 4 4
Floppy controllers per virtual machine 1  1 1 1 1 1 1
Floppy devices per virtual machine 2  2 2 2 2 2 2
Virtual NICs per virtual machine 10  10 10 10 10 10 10
USB controllers per virtual machine 1  1 1 1 1 1 1
USB devices connected to a virtual machine 20  20 20 20 20 20 20
USB 3.0 devices per virtual machine 1  1 1 1 1 1 1
Video memory per virtual machine 4GB  2GB 2GB 512MB 512MB
Parallel ports per virtual machine 3  3 3 3 3 3 3


Host Maximums

 vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0  5.5 5.1  5.0
Logical CPUs per host 768 768 576 480 320 160 160
Virtual machines per host 1024 1024 1024 1024 512 512 512
Virtual CPUs per host 4096 4096 4096 4096 4096 2048 2048
Virtual CPUs per core 32 32 32 32 32 25 25
RAM per host 16TB 16TB 12TB 12TB 4TB 2TB 2TB


Network Maximums

vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0  5.5 5.1  5.0
 Total virtual network switch ports per host 4096 4096 4096 4096 4096 4096 4096
 Maximum active ports per host 1016 1016 1016 1016 1016 1050 1050
 Virtual network switch creation ports 4088 4088 4088 4088 4088 4088 4088
 Port groups 512 512 512 512 512 512 512
 Distributed virtual network switch ports per vCenter 60000 60000 60000 60000 60000 60000 60000
 Static port groups per vCenter 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000
 Ephemeral port groups per vCenter 1016 1016 1016 1016 1016 1016 1016
 Hosts per distributed switch 2000 2000 2000 1000 500 500 350
 Distributed switches per vCenter 128 128 128 128 128 128 32
 VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per host 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
 VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per virtual machine 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
 Concurrent vMotion operations per host (1Gb/s network) 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
 Concurrent vMotion operations per host (10Gb/s network) 4 4 8 8 8 8 8

Storage Maximums

vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.1  5.0
Software iSCSI NICs per server 8 8 8 8 8 8
Number of total paths on a server 4048 2048 1024 1024 1024 1024
Number of paths to a iSCSI LUN 8 8 8 8 8 8
Software iSCSI targets 256 256 256 256 256 256
NFS mounts per host 256 256 256 256 256 256
 FC LUNs per host 512 512 256 256 256 256
FC LUN ID 16383 16383 1023 255 255 255
FC Number of paths to a LUN 32 32 32 32 32 32
Number of HBAs of any type 8 8 8 8 8 8
HBA ports 16 16 16 16 16 16
Targets per HBA 256 256 256 256 256
Software FCoE adapters 4 4 4 4 4 4
Hosts per volume 64 64 64 64 64 64
Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume 2048 2048 2048 2048 2048 2048
Concurrent vMotion operations per datastore 128 128 128 128 128 128
Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per datastore 8 8 8 8 8 8
Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per host 2 2 2 2 2 2
Concurrent non vMotion provisioning operations per host 8 8 8 8 8 8
VMFS Volume size 64TB 64TB 64TB 64TB 64TB 64TB
Virtual disks per datastore cluster 9000 9000 9000 9000
Datastores per datastore cluster 64 64 64 64
Datastore clusters per vCenter 256 256 256 256

Fault Tolerance Maximums

vSphere 6.7 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.1  5.0
Virtual disks 16 16 16 16 16
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine 8 4 4 1  1 1
RAM per FT VM 64GB 64GB 64GB 64GB 64GB 64GB
Virtual machines per host 4 4  4  4 4 4

Virtual SAN Maximums

vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0 5.5
Virtual SAN disk groups per host 5 5 5 5
Magnetic disks per disk group 7 7 7 7
SSD disks per disk group 1 1 1 1
Spinning disks in all diskgroups per host 35 35 35 35
Components per Virtual SAN host 9000 9000 9000 3000
 Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster 64 64 64 32
 Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster (All-Flash) 32 32
 Number of datastores per cluster 1 1 1 1
 Virtual machines per host 200 200 200 100
 Virtual machines per cluster 6000 6000 6400 3200
Virtual machine virtual disk size 62TB 62TB 62TB 62TB
Disk stripes per object 12 12 12 12
Percentage of flash read cache reservation 100 100 100 100
Failure to tolerate 3 3 3 3
Percentage of object space reservation 100 100 100 100
Virtual SAN networks/physical network fabrics 2 2 2 2

vCenter Server Maximums

vSphere 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.1  5.0
Hosts per vCenter Server 2000 2000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Powered on virtual machines 25000 25000 10000 10000 10000 10000
Registered virtual machines 35000 15000 15000 15000 15000
Linked vCenter Servers 15 10/15 10 10 10 10
Hosts in linked vCenter Servers 8000 6000 4000 3000 3000 3000
Powered on virtual machines in linked vCenter 50000 30000/50000 30000 30000 30000 30000
Registered virtual machines in linked vCenter 70000 50000 50000 50000 50000 50000
Concurrent Client connections 60 180 100 100 100
Number of host per datacenter 2000 500 500 500 500
MAC addresses per vCenter Server 65536 65536 65536 65536 65536
USB devices connected at vSphere Client 20 20 20 20

 

Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums

vSphere 6.7 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.1  5.0
Hosts per cluster 64 64 64 32 32 32
Virtual machines per cluster 8000 8000 4000 4000 4000 3000
Virtual machines per host 1024 1024 512 512 512
Maximum concurrent host HA failover 32 32
Failover as percentage of cluster 100% 100%
Resource pools per cluster 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600
Resource pools per host 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600
Children per resource pool 1100 1100 1024 1024 1024
Resource pool tree depth 8 8 8 8 8 8

With every release of VMware vSphere, those maximum values changing. Each major release of VMware vSphere brings higher consolidation ratio with a possibility to do more. When virtualization started, the difference between a workload which runs on a dedicated host differed up to 10%, but now, over the years, this difference has been taking to about 2% only.

It means that VMware vSphere infrastructures are more efficient, more flexible and more reliable.

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