VMware vSphere Configuration maximums. On this page, you'll find the latest version of vSphere configuration maximums compared to some previous release. Check out our detailed vSphere 6.7 page.
When you select and configure your virtual and physical equipment, you must stay at or below the maximums supported by vSphere 6.5. The limits presented in the following sections represent tested, recommended limits, and are fully supported by VMware.
The limits can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies.
The virtual machine maximums represent limits applicable to compute, memory, storage virtual adapters and devices, network virtual devices, virtual peripheral ports, and graphics video device.
If more than one configuration options (such as a number of virtual machines, number of LUNs, and a number of VDS ports) are used at their maximum limit, some of the processes running on the host might run out of memory.
This might cause the host to keep disconnecting from the vCenter Server. In such a case, you need to increase the memory pool for these host processes so that the host can withstand the workload you are planning.
- VM maximums
- Host maximums
- Network maximums
- Storage maximums
- Fault Tolerance maximums
- vSAN maximums
- vCenter Server maximums
- Cluster and Resource Pool maximums
Virtual Machine Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Virtual CPUs per virtual machine | 256 | 256* | 128 | 128 | 64 | 64 | 32 |
| RAM per virtual machine | 6TB | 6TB | 6TB | 4TB | 1TB | 1TB | 1TB |
| Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter | 64 | 64 | 15 | 15 | 15 | ||
| Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine | 256 | 256 | 60 | 60 | 60 | ||
| Virtual NVMe adapters per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||||
| Virtual NVMe targets per virtual SCSI adapter | 15 | 15 | 15 | ||||
| Virtual NVMe targets per virtual machine | 60 | 60 | 60 | ||||
| Virtual SATA adapters per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||
| Virtual SATA devices per virtual SATA adapter | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | ||
| Virtual disk size | 62TB | 62TB | 62TB | 62TB | 62TB | 2TB | 2TB |
| IDE controllers per virtual machine | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| IDE devices per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Floppy controllers per virtual machine | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Floppy devices per virtual machine | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Virtual NICs per virtual machine | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| USB controllers per virtual machine | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USB devices connected to a virtual machine | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| USB 3.0 devices per virtual machine | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Video memory per virtual machine | 4GB | 2GB | 2GB | 512MB | 512MB | ||
| Parallel ports per virtual machine | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Host Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Logical CPUs per host | 768 | 768 | 576 | 480 | 320 | 160 | 160 |
| Virtual machines per host | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Virtual CPUs per host | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 2048 | 2048 |
| Virtual CPUs per core | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 25 | 25 |
| RAM per host | 16TB | 16TB | 12TB | 12TB | 4TB | 2TB | 2TB |
Network Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Total virtual network switch ports per host | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 |
| Maximum active ports per host | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1050 | 1050 |
| Virtual network switch creation ports | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 |
| Port groups | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Distributed virtual network switch ports per vCenter | 60000 | 60000 | 60000 | 60000 | 60000 | 60000 | 60000 |
| Static port groups per vCenter | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Ephemeral port groups per vCenter | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 |
| Hosts per distributed switch | 2000 | 2000 | 2000 | 1000 | 500 | 500 | 350 |
| Distributed switches per vCenter | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 32 |
| VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per host | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Concurrent vMotion operations per host (1Gb/s network) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Concurrent vMotion operations per host (10Gb/s network) | 4 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Storage Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Software iSCSI NICs per server | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| Number of total paths on a server | 4048 | 2048 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| Number of paths to a iSCSI LUN | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| Software iSCSI targets | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | |
| NFS mounts per host | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | |
| FC LUNs per host | 512 | 512 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | |
| FC LUN ID | 16383 | 16383 | 1023 | 255 | 255 | 255 | |
| FC Number of paths to a LUN | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | |
| Number of HBAs of any type | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| HBA ports | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | |
| Targets per HBA | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | ||
| Software FCoE adapters | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
| Hosts per volume | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | |
| Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | |
| Concurrent vMotion operations per datastore | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | |
| Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per datastore | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per host | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| Concurrent non vMotion provisioning operations per host | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| VMFS Volume size | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | |
| Virtual disks per datastore cluster | 9000 | 9000 | 9000 | 9000 | |||
| Datastores per datastore cluster | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | |||
| Datastore clusters per vCenter | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
Fault Tolerance Maximums
| vSphere | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Virtual disks | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | |
| Virtual CPUs per virtual machine | 8 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| RAM per FT VM | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB |
| Virtual machines per host | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Virtual SAN Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 |
| Virtual SAN disk groups per host | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| Magnetic disks per disk group | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | |
| SSD disks per disk group | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Spinning disks in all diskgroups per host | 35 | 35 | 35 | 35 | |
| Components per Virtual SAN host | 9000 | 9000 | 9000 | 3000 | |
| Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster | 64 | 64 | 64 | 32 | |
| Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster (All-Flash) | 32 | 32 | |||
| Number of datastores per cluster | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Virtual machines per host | 200 | 200 | 200 | 100 | |
| Virtual machines per cluster | 6000 | 6000 | 6400 | 3200 | |
| Virtual machine virtual disk size | 62TB | 62TB | 62TB | 62TB | |
| Disk stripes per object | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | |
| Percentage of flash read cache reservation | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | |
| Failure to tolerate | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |
| Percentage of object space reservation | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | |
| Virtual SAN networks/physical network fabrics | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
vCenter Server Maximums
| vSphere | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Hosts per vCenter Server | 2000 | 2000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | |
| Powered on virtual machines | 25000 | 25000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | |
| Registered virtual machines | 35000 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | ||
| Linked vCenter Servers | 15 | 10/15 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | |
| Hosts in linked vCenter Servers | 8000 | 6000 | 4000 | 3000 | 3000 | 3000 | |
| Powered on virtual machines in linked vCenter | 50000 | 30000/50000 | 30000 | 30000 | 30000 | 30000 | |
| Registered virtual machines in linked vCenter | 70000 | 50000 | 50000 | 50000 | 50000 | 50000 | |
| Concurrent Client connections | 60 | 180 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ||
| Number of host per datacenter | 2000 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | ||
| MAC addresses per vCenter Server | 65536 | 65536 | 65536 | 65536 | 65536 | ||
| USB devices connected at vSphere Client | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums
| vSphere | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Hosts per cluster | 64 | 64 | 64 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Virtual machines per cluster | 8000 | 8000 | 4000 | 4000 | 4000 | 3000 |
| Virtual machines per host | 1024 | 1024 | 512 | 512 | 512 | |
| Maximum concurrent host HA failover | 32 | 32 | ||||
| Failover as percentage of cluster | 100% | 100% | ||||
| Resource pools per cluster | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | |
| Resource pools per host | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | |
| Children per resource pool | 1100 | 1100 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| Resource pool tree depth | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
With every release of VMware vSphere, those maximum values changing. Each major release of VMware vSphere brings higher consolidation ratio with a possibility to do more. When virtualization started, the difference between a workload which runs on a dedicated host differed up to 10%, but now, over the years, this difference has been taking to about 2% only.
It means that VMware vSphere infrastructures are more efficient, more flexible and more reliable.
More from ESX Virtualization:
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- vSphere 6.5
- VMware API Explorer Is a Free Built-in Utility in VCSA
- Free Tools
- How to reset root password in vCenter Server Appliance 6.5
- VMware vSphere Standard vs Enterprise Plus
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