Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Storage

This is another post in my series about Hyper-V vs. VMware.

This time it is about storage in terms of virtualization. And as you could read everywhere, Microsoft did also a lot of improvements for the Windows Server 2012 release.

• New Virtual Disk format (VHDX) – Supports up to 64 TB Virtual Hard Disks
• Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) – Offloads storage-intensive tasks to the SAN
• Data De-duplication
• Storage Spaces and Storage Pools – Data Advanced Storage Array Features to Windows Server
• Virtual Machine boot from SAN
• Live merging of VHDs and Virtual Machine Snapshots
• Native 4K Disk Support – Take advantage of enhanced density and reliability
• Virtual Fiber Channel – Connect a Virtual Machine directly to a Fiber Channel SAN
• Support for File based Storage with SMB 3.0
• New file system (ReFS)
• BitLocker encryption support – BitLocker is now available for Cluster Shared Volumes to support encryption in cluster environments

• The maximum size of a physical disk in attached to a Hyper-V virtual machine is determined by the guest operating system and the chosen file system within the guest
• vStorage API for Multipathing (VAMP) is only available in Enterprise & Enterprise Plus editions of vSphere 5.0
• vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) is only available in Enterprise & Enterprise Plus editions of vSphere 5.0
• VMware documentation does not suggests that their respective platforms support 4K Advanced Format Drives

Sources:

• TechEd session “VIR311 – Compete to Win | Part I: Comparing Core Virtualization Platforms” from Matt McSpirit
• http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r50/vsphere-50-configuration-maximums.pdf
• http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

Check out my Blog post Hyper-V 2012 – Hey I Just Met You And This Is Crazy for more information about the latest version of Hyper-V.