What is VMWare vSAN and how to configure vSAN step by step

VMware vSAN uses a software-defined approach that creates shared storage for virtual machines. It virtualizes the local physical storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into pools of storage that can be divided and assigned to virtual machines and applications according to their quality-of-service requirements. vSAN is implemented directly in the ESXi hypervisor.

You can configure vSAN to work as either a hybrid or all-flash cluster. In hybrid clusters, flash devices are used for the cache layer and magnetic disks are used for the storage capacity layer. In all-flash clusters, flash devices are used for both cache and capacity.

You can activate vSAN on your existing host clusters and when you create new clusters. vSAN aggregates all local capacity devices into a single datastore shared by all hosts in the vSAN cluster. You can expand the datastore by adding capacity devices or hosts with capacity devices to the cluster. vSAN works best when all ESXi hosts in the cluster share similar or identical configurations across all cluster members, including similar or identical storage configurations. This consistent configuration balances virtual machine storage components across all devices and hosts in the cluster. Hosts without any local devices also can participate and run their virtual machines on the vSAN datastore.

If a host contributes its local storage devices to the vSAN datastore, it must provide at least one device for flash cache and at least one device for capacity. Capacity devices are also called data disks.

The devices on the contributing host form one or more disk groups. Each disk group contains one flash cache device, and one or multiple capacity devices for persistent storage. Each host can be configured to use multiple disk groups.

Steps to configure vSAN cluster

Login to vCenter

Select cluster -> Configuration 

Go to vSAN left below -> Select service and click configure

Select vSAN cluster type

While enabling vSAN cluster service you need to disable HA temporarily.

Select the service type that you want to enable

Claim disk for cache and capacity tier

From each host there will be once cache tier and one capacity tier

Always keep cache tier SSD disk for high performance

Cache tier will keep hot data and capacity tier will keep cold data

Click next you will see list of the host that will be part of cluster

If you want to add additional you can add from here as well

Click Finish

Now login to vCenter -> Select go to storage and you will vSAN Datastore created here.