Compute
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine (Virtual SMP)
128
Memory
RAM per virtual machine
6128 GB
Memory
Virtual machine swap file size
6128
VMFS3 with 1 MB block maximum swap size is 255 GB. Recommended solution is VMFS5, not VMFS3 with bigger block size
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine
4
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter
15
Any combination of disk or VMDirectPath SCSI target.
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine
60
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual NVMe adapters per virtual machine
4
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual SCSI adapter
15
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual machine
60
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual disk size
62 TB
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
IDE controllers per virtual machine
1
Supports two channels (primary and secondary) each with a master and slave device.
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
IDE devices per virtual machine
4
Devices can be either CD-ROM or disk.
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
IDE CDROM devices per virtual machine
4
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Floppy controllers per virtual machine
1
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Floppy devices per virtual machine
2
BIOS is configured for one floppy device.
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual SATA adapters per virtual machine
4
Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices
Virtual SATA devices per virtual SATA adapter
30
Devices can be either CD-ROM or disk
Networking Virtual Devices
Virtual NICs per virtual machine
10
Any combination of supported virtual NICs
Networking Virtual Devices
Virtual NICs per virtual machine
1
Virtual Peripheral Ports
USB host controllers per virtual machine
1
USB 1.x, 2.x and 3.x supported. One USB host controller of each version 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x can be added at the same time.
Virtual Peripheral Ports
USB devices connected to a virtual machine
20
Guest operating systems might have lower limits than allowed by vSphere.
Virtual Peripheral Ports
Parallel ports per virtual machine
3
Virtual Peripheral Ports
Serial ports per virtual machine
32
Miscellaneous
Concurrent remote console connections to a virtual machine
40
Miscellaneous
Video memory per virtual machine
2 GB
ESXi Host Maximums ( Compute Maximums )
Host CPU maximums
Logical CPUs per host
576
Virtual machine maximums
Virtual machines per host
1024
Virtual machine maximums
Virtual CPUs per host
4096
Virtual machine maximums
Virtual CPUs per core
32
The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information, see the latest version of Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere.
Fault Tolerance maximums
Virtual disks
16
Fault Tolerance maximums
Disk size
2 TB
Fault Tolerance maximums
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine
4
Fault Tolerance maximums
RAM per FT VM
64 GB
Fault Tolerance maximums
Virtual machines per host
4
Fault Tolerance maximums
Virtual CPU per host
8
ESXi Host Maximums ( Networking Maximums )
Physical NICs
igbn 1 Gb Ethernet ports (Intel)
16
Physical NICs
ntg3 1 Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom)
32
Physical NICs
bnx2 1 Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic)
16
Physical NICs
elxnet 10 Gb Ethernet ports (Emulex)
8
Physical NICs
ixgbe 10 Gb Ethernet ports (Intel)
16
Physical NICs
bnx2x 10 Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic)
8
Physical NICs
Infiniband ports (refer to VMware Community Support)
N/A
Mellanox Technologies InfiniBand HCA device drivers are available directly from Mellanox Technologies. Go to the Mellanox Web site for information about support status of InfiniBand HCAs with ESXi.
http://www.mellanox.com
Physical NICs
Combination of 10 Gb and 1 Gb ethernet ports
Sixteen 10 GB and four 1 GB ports
Physical NICs
nmlx4_en 40 Gb Ethernet Ports (Mellanox)
4
Physical NICs
nmlx5_core 25 Gb Ethernet Ports (Mellanox)
4
Physical NICs
nmlx5_core 50 Gb Ethernet Ports (Mellanox)
4
Physical NICs
nnmlx5_core 100 Gb Ethernet Ports (Mellanox)
4
Physical NICs
i40en 10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Intel)
8
Physical NICs
i40en 40 Gb Ethernet Ports (Intel)
4
Physical NICs
qedentv 25 Gb Ethernet Port (Qlogic)
4
Physical NICs
qedentv 50 Gb Ethernet Port (Qlogic)
4
Physical NICs
qedentv 100 Gb Ethernet Port (Qlogic)
2
VMDirectPath limits
VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per host
8
A virtual machine can support 6 devices, if 2 of them are Teradici devices.
SRIOV
SR-IOV Number of virtual functions per host
1024
SR-IOV supports up to 43 virtual functions on supported Intel NICs and up to 64 virtual functions on supported Emulex NICs. The actual number of virtual functions available for passthrough depends on the number of interrupt vectors required by each of them and on the hardware configuration of the host. Each ESXi host has a limited number of interrupt vectors. When the host boots, devices on the host such as storage controllers, physical network adapters, and USB controllers consume a subset of the total number of vectors. Depending upon the number of vectors these devices consume, the maximum number of potentially supported VFs could be reduced.
SRIOV
SR-IOV Number of 10 G pNICs per host
8
SRIOV
VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per virtual machine
4
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS ports)
4096
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS ports)
4096
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Maximum active ports per host (VDS and VSS)
1016
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Virtual network switch creation ports per standard switch
4088
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Port groups per standard switch
512
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Static/Dynamic port groups per distributed switch
10000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Ephemeral port groups per distributed switch
1016
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Ports per distributed switch
60000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Distributed virtual network switch ports per vCenter
60000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Static/dynamic port groups per vCenter
10000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Ephemeral port groups per vCenter
1016
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Distributed switches per vCenter
128
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Distributed switches per host
16
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
VSS portgroups per host
1000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
LACP - LAGs per host
64
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
LACP - uplink ports per LAG (Team)
32
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
Hosts per distributed switch
2000
vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch
NIOC resource pools per vDS
64
ESXi Host Maximums ( Storage Maximums )
Virtual Disks
Virtual Disks per Host
2048
iSCSI Physical
LUNs per server
512
iSCSI Physical
Cavium (Qlogic) 1 Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server
4
iSCSI Physical
Cavium (Qlogic) 10 Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server
4
iSCSI Physical
NICs that can be associated or port bound with the software iSCSI stack per server
8
iSCSI Physical
Number of total paths on a server
2048
iSCSI Physical
Number of paths to a LUN (software iSCSI and hardware iSCSI)
8
iSCSI Physical
Cavium (Qlogic) 1 Gb iSCSI HBA targets per adapter port
64
iSCSI Physical
Cavium (Qlogic)10 Gb iSCSI HBA targets per adapter port
128
iSCSI Physical
Software iSCSI targets
256
The sum of static targets (manually assigned IP addresses) and dynamic targets (IP addresses assigned to discovered targets) may not exceed this number.
NAS
NFS mounts per host
256
Fibre Channel
LUNs per host
512
Fibre Channel
LUN size
64 TB
Fibre Channel
LUN ID
0 to 16383
Fibre Channel
Number of paths to a LUN
32
Fibre Channel
Number of total paths on a server
2048
Fibre Channel
Number of HBAs of any type
8
Fibre Channel
HBA ports
16
Fibre Channel
Targets per HBA
256
FCoE
Software FCoE adapters
4
Common VMFS
Volume size
64 TB
For VMFS3 volumes with 1 MB block size, the maximum volume size is 50 TB
Common VMFS
Volumes per host
512
Common VMFS
Hosts per volume
64
Common VMFS
Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume
2048
Common VMFS
Concurrent vMotion operations per VMFS volume
128
VMFS3
Raw device mapping size (virtual and physical)
2 TB minus 512 bytes
VMFS3
Block size
8 MB
VMFS3
File size (1 MB block size)
256 GB
VMFS3
File size (2 MB block size)
512 GB
VMFS3
File size (4 MB block size)
1 TB
VMFS3
File size (8 MB block size)
2 TB minus 512 bytes
VMFS3
Files per volume
Approximately 30720
VMFS5 / VMFS-6
Raw Device Mapping size (virtual compatibility)
62 TB
VMFS5 / VMFS-6
Raw Device Mapping size (physical compatibility)
64 TB
VMFS5 / VMFS-6
Block size
1 MB
1MB is the default block size. Upgraded VMFS5 volumes inherit the VMFS3 block size value.
VMFS5 / VMFS-6
File size
62 TB
VMFS5 / VMFS-6
Files per volume
Approximately 130690
ESXi Host Maximums ( ESXi Graphics Maximums )
GPU based Graphics Maximums
Maximum number of shared physical GPUs
16
GPU based Graphics Maximums
Maximum virtual graphics memory per virtual machine
2GB
ESXi Host Maximums ( Memory Maximums )
ESXi Host Memory Maximums
Maximum RAM per host
12 TB
12 TB is supported on specific OEM certified platform. See VMware Hardware Compatibility Limits for guidance on the platforms that support vSphere 6.0 with 12 TB of physical memory.
ESXi Host Memory Maximums
Number of swap files
1 per virtual machine