How does vSAN enhance storage efficiency for VMs?

vSAN enhances storage efficiency for virtual machines by integrating storage with computing resources, which aligns directly with the architecture of hyper-converged infrastructure. This integration allows for the pooling of storage resources from multiple ESXi hosts within a cluster, enabling a more efficient use of available storage across the entire environment.

When storage and compute resources are combined, vSAN can optimize performance, latency, and throughput. It leverages the local disks of the servers in a cluster, distributed across nodes, to deliver high availability and fault tolerance. This integration dramatically simplifies storage management and eliminates the need for separate storage networks, which often come with complexity and cost.

Moreover, by having direct access to storage within the hypervisor layer, vSAN can intelligently distribute workloads and balance I/O demands among the available disks, thus providing a more efficient use of resources compared to traditional separate storage solutions. This results in enhanced performance for virtual machines and reduces overhead, leading to more effective resource utilization overall.