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NFS Multi-Connections in vSphere 8.0 Update 1

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The upcoming vSphere 8.0 Update 1 release includes a lot of exciting new features, some of which you can learn about by listening to either The Unexplored Territory and VirtuallySpeaking Podcasts, both of which covered the vSphere 8.0 Update 1 launch announcement. One of the highlighted core storage platform feature is the long awaited NFS capability that will allows users to select and isolate a specific VMKernel interface as shown in the screenshot below.


This actually reminded me of another interesting NFS capability that will also be part of the upcoming vSphere 8.0 Update 1 release, which is for ESXi to support multiple TCP connections for a single NFS v3 volume, also referred to as nconnect for those familiar with this NFS capability.

For those interested in this new NFS capability, it is important to note that this setting will initially only be configurable by using either the vSphere API or ESXCLI directly on an ESXi host.

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Quick Tip - How to download ESXi ISO image for all releases including patch updates?

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Not all ESXi releases, including patch updates are available as an ISO image that can be downloaded. Depending on the type of ESXi release, it will either be available as an ISO and Offline Bundle (zip) format which can downloaded from the ESXi Customer Connect portal or only as an Offline Bundle which must be downloaded from the VMware Patch portal.

I typically see folks forgetting about the VMware Patch portal, which also provides patch updates for the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), when they are searching for a new ESXi updates. Let's take a look at an example using the ESXi 7.0 Update 3 release, as you can see from the screenshot below, you can download 7.0 Update 3c, d, f and g from the Customer Connector portal but for 7.0 Update 3e, i, j and k you will need to use the VMware Patch portal.


As mentioned earlier, when downloading ESXi patches from the VMware Patch portal, they are only available in the Offline Bundle format, which might work for most typical patch use cases but in some scenarios, you may actually want it in an ISO format, especially for initial installation.

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SSD with multiple NVMe namespaces for VMware Homelab

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If space is a constraint for your VMware Homelab, you may want to consider using SSDs that can support multiple NVMe Namespaces. I first came to learn about NVMe namespaces and its benefits back in 2019 when it was first demonstrated by Micron and using it vSAN, which was also the primary use case I had in mind.

While interesting, I eventually concluded that support for multiple NVMe namespaces was only available in higher-end Enterprise SSDs, which is typically outside of the affordability range for most homelab environments. Another challenge that I found with SSDs that supported multiple NVMe namespaces, is that the interface uses a U.2 connector versus the popular M.2, which is what you would typically find in a homelab setup. This also limited the applicability of these SSDs as you would need a motherboard with a U.2 interface.

I recently had revisited the topic of NVMe namepaces as I came across the PM9A3 from Samsung, which not only supported multiple NVMe namespaces, but it was also reasonable priced ($143 for 960GB at the time of purchase). My ultimate goal was to see if I could use the 2.5" SSD in a small form factor system that only has an M.2 slot and slice up the NVMe namespace for ESXi installation + ESX-OSDATA, vSAN and even additional VMFS volumes.

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