---
name: vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-storage
title: Storage (vSAN only)
description: As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
last-updated: 2025-10-24
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Storage (vSAN only)
{: #vs_orderinginstances-storage-settings}

As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
{: deprecated}

The **Storage** section of your VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Flexible instance order is applicable only if you select the VMware vSAN™ component.

* New instances are provisioned with mirrored M.2 boot drives.
* VMware ESXi™ servers are ordered with a 12-disk chassis and two disks are ordered for caching. The ESXi OS is placed on a single M.2 solid-state drive that does not use a disk bay. These settings are configured by default and cannot be changed.
* You can order more capacity disks by specifying values for **Size for vSAN capacity disks** and **Number of vSAN capacity disks**.

If you do not select the vSAN component for your order, the ESXi servers are ordered with a 12-disk chassis, with two disks for the ESXi operating system (OS).
{: note}

## Storage architecture
{: #vs_orderinginstances-storage-archi}

Review the following considerations for the vSAN storage architecture:

* For **Sapphire Rapids** servers, both vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA are available. For **Cascade Lake** servers, only vSAN OSA is available.
* vSAN ESA requires a minimum of 3 bare metal servers. vSAN OSA requires a minimum of 4 bare metal servers.
* For both vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA, you can select the size and number of **vSAN capacity disks**. For vSAN OSA, the size and number of **vSAN cache disks** are selected by default.
* For vSAN ESA, the **Enable vSAN compression** option is available. For vSAN OSA, the **Enable vSAN deduplication and compression** option is available.
* vSAN ESA is selected by default with the 25 Gb uplink speed. If you select the 10 Gb uplink speed, the vSAN storage architecture is changed to vSAN OSA, because vSAN ESA is not compatible with the 10 Gb uplink speed.
* For vSAN ESA, the 25 GB network interfaces are configured with LACP.

Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP™) for VMware® offering support will end on 31 December 2026, after which the KMIP for VMware service will no longer work. Migrate to [IBM® Key Protect for IBM Cloud®](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/key-protect?format=markdown).
{: deprecated}

Specify the following settings for the vSAN component:
* **Size for vSAN capacity disks** - Select an option for the capacity disks that you need.
* **Number of vSAN capacity disks** - Specify the number of capacity disks that you want to add.
* Review the **Size for vSAN cache disks** and **Number of vSAN cache disks** values.

## Enable vSAN deduplication and compression
{: #vs_orderinginstance-storage-enable-comp}

vSAN storage depends on the number of servers and your total disk capacity, and the use of deduplication and compression.

The amount of storage reduction from deduplication and compression depends on many factors, including the type of data stored and the number of duplicate blocks. Larger disk groups tend to provide a higher deduplication ratio. For more information, see [Using deduplication and compression](https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsan/vsan/7-0/vsan-adminstration-7-0/increasing-space-efficiency-in-a-vsan-cluster/using-deduplication-and-compression-in-vsan-cluster.html){: external}.
{: note}

## Enable vSAN compression (vSAN ESA only)
{: #vs_orderinginstance-storage-enable-comp-esa}

vSAN storage depends on the number of servers and your total disk capacity, and the use of deduplication. For Sapphire Rapids servers, both vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA are available. However, the **Enable vSAN compression** option is available only for vSAN ESA. For more information, see [Storage architecture](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-storage-settings&format=markdown#vs_orderinginstances-storage-archi).

## Related links
{: #vs_orderinginstances-storage-related}

* [Network interface](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-network-interface-settings&format=markdown)
* [Procedure to order Flexible instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-procedure&format=markdown)