| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Virtual Machine Maximums | |||
| Compute | Virtual CPUs per virtual machine (Virtual SMP) | 128 | The maximum limit for cores per socket is 64. 128 virtual CPUs can be configured if 2 sockets are configured with 64 cores. |
| Memory | RAM per virtual machine | 4 TB | The actual value supported is 4080 GB and not 4096 GB. |
| Memory | Virtual machine swap file size | 4 TB | VMFS3 with 1 MB block maximum swap size is 255 GB. The recommended solution is VMFS5, not VMFS3 with bigger block size. |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine | 4 | |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter | 15 | Any combination of disk or VMDirectPath SCSI target. |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine | 60 | |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual disk size | 62 TB | |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | IDE controllers per virtual machine | 1 | Supports two channels (primary and secondary) each with a master and slave device. |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | IDE devices per virtual machine | 4 | Devices can be either CD ROM or disk. |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Floppy controllers per virtual machine | 1 | |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Floppy devices per virtual machine | 2 | BIOS is configured for one floppy device. |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual SATA adapters per virtual machine | 4 | |
| Storage Virtual Adapters and Devices | Virtual SATA devices per virtual SATA adapter | 30 | Devices can be either CD ROM or disk |
| Networking Virtual Devices | Virtual NICs per virtual machine | 10 | Any combination of supported virtual NICs |
| Virtual Peripheral Ports | USB host controllers per virtual machine | 1 | USB 1.x, 2.x and 3.x supported. One USB host controller of each version 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x can be added at the same time. |
| Virtual Peripheral Ports | USB devices connected to a virtual machine | 20 | Guest operating systems might have lower limits than allowed by vSphere. |
| Virtual Peripheral Ports | Parallel ports per virtual machine | 3 | |
| Virtual Peripheral Ports | Serial ports per virtual machine | 32 | |
| Miscellaneous | Concurrent remote console connections to a virtual machine | 40 | |
| Graphics video device | Video memory per virtual machine | 512 MB | |
| ESXi Host Maximums : Compute Maximums |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Host CPU maximums | Logical CPUs per host | 480 | |
| Host CPU maximums | NUMA Nodes per host | 16 | |
| Virtual machine maximums | Virtual machines per host | 1024 | |
| Virtual machine maximums | Virtual CPUs per host | 4096 | |
| Virtual machine maximums | Virtual CPUs per core | 32 | The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information, see the latest version of Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere. |
| Fault Tolerance maximums | Virtual disks | 16 | |
| Fault Tolerance maximums | Virtual CPUs per virtual machine | 4 | |
| Fault Tolerance maximums | RAM per FT VM | 64 GB | |
| Fault Tolerance maximums | Virtual machines per host | 4 | |
| Fault Tolerance maximums | Virtual CPU per host | 8 | |
| ESXi Host Maximums : Memory Maximums | |||
| ESXi Host Memory Maximums | RAM per host | 6 TB | 12 TB is supported on specific OEM certified platform. See VMware Hardware Compatibility Limits for guidance on the platforms that support vSphere 6.0 with 12 TB of physical memory. |
| ESXi Host Memory Maximums | Number of swap files | 1 per virtual machine | |
| ESXi Host Maximums : Storage Maximums | |||
| Virtual Disks | Virtual Disks per Host | 2048 | |
| iSCSI Physical | LUNs per server | 256 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Qlogic 1 Gb iSCSI HBA targets per adapter port | 4 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Broadcom 10 Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server | 4 | |
| iSCSI Physical | NICs that can be associated or port bound with the software iSCSI stack per server | 8 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Number of total paths on a server | 1024 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Number of paths to a LUN (software iSCSI and hardware iSCSI) | 8 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Qlogic iSCSI: dynamic targets per adapter port | 64 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Qlogic iSCSI: static targets per adapter port | 62 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Software iSCSI targets | 256 | The sum of static targets (manually assigned IP addresses) and dynamic targets (IP addresses assigned to discovered targets) may not exceed this number. |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| NAS | NFS mounts per host | 256 | |
| Fibre Channel | LUNs per host | 256 | |
| Fibre Channel | LUN size | 64 TB | |
| Fibre Channel | LUN ID | 1023 | |
| Fibre Channel | Number of paths to a LUN | 32 | |
| Fibre Channel | Number of total paths on a server | 1024 | |
| Fibre Channel | Number of HBAs of any type | 8 | |
| Fibre Channel | HBA ports | 16 | |
| Fibre Channel | Targets per HBA | 256 | |
| FCoE | Software FCoE adapters | 4 | |
| Common VMFS | Volume size | 64 TB | For VMFS3 volumes with 1 MB block size, the maximum volume size is 50 TB |
| Common VMFS | Volumes per host | 256 | |
| Common VMFS | Hosts per volume | 64 | |
| Common VMFS | Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume | 2048 | |
| Common VMFS | Concurrent vMotion operations per VMFS volume | 128 | |
| VMFS3 | Raw device mapping size (virtual and physical) | 2 TB minus 512 bytes | |
| VMFS3 | Block size | 8 MB | |
| VMFS3 | File size (1 MB block size) | 256 GB | |
| VMFS3 | File size (2 MB block size) | 512 GB | |
| VMFS3 | File size (4 MB block size) | 1 TB | |
| VMFS3 | File size (8 MB block size) | 2 TB minus 512 bytes | |
| VMFS3 | Files per volume | Approximately 30720 | |
| VMFS5 | Raw Device Mapping size (virtual compatibility) | 62 TB | |
| VMFS5 | Raw Device Mapping size (physical compatibility) | 64 TB | |
| VMFS5 | Block size | 1 MB | 1MB is the default block size. Upgraded VMFS5 volumes inherit the VMFS3 block size value. |
| VMFS5 | File size | 62 TB | |
| VMFS5 | Files per volume | Approximately 130690 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Broadcom 1 Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server | 4 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Broadcom 1 Gb iSCSI HBA targets per adapter port | 64 | |
| iSCSI Physical | Broadcom 10 Gb iSCSI HBA targets per adapter port | 128 | |
| ESXi Host Maximums : Networking Maximums | |||
| Physical NICs | igb 1 Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) | 16 | |
| Physical NICs | bnx2 1 Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic) | 16 | |
| Physical NICs | elxnet 10 Gb Ethernet ports (Emulex) | 8 | |
| Physical NICs | ixgbe 10 Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) | 16 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Physical NICs | Infiniband ports (refer to VMware Community Support) | N/A | Mellanox Technologies InfiniBand HCA device drivers are available directly from Mellanox Technologies. Go to the Mellanox Web site for information about support status of InfiniBand HCAs with ESXi. http:// www.mellanox.com |
| Physical NICs | Combination of 10 Gb and 1 Gb ethernet ports | Sixteen 10 GB and four 1 GB ports | |
| VMDirectPath limits | SR-IOV Number of 10 G pNICs | 8 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Maximum active ports per host (VDS and VSS) | 1016 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS ports) | 4096 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Virtual network switch creation ports per standard switch | 4088 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Port groups per standard switch | 512 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Static/Dynamic port groups per distributed switch | 10000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Ephemeral port groups per distributed switch | 1016 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Ports per distributed switch | 60000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Distributed virtual network switch ports per vCenter | 60000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Static/dynamic port groups per vCenter | 10,000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Ephemeral port groups per vCenter | 1016 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Distributed switches per vCenter | 128 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Distributed switches per host | 16 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | VSS portgroups per host | 1000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | LACP – LAGs per host | 64 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | LACP – uplink ports per LAG (Team) | 32 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Hosts per distributed switch | 1000 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | NIOC resource pools per vDS | 64 | |
| vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch | Link aggregation groups per vDS | 64 | |
| Physical NICs | e1000e 1 Gb Ethernet ports (Intel PCI-e) | 24 | |
| Physical NICs | nmlx4_en 40 Gb Ethernet Ports (Mellanox) | 4 | |
| Physical NICs | nx_nic 10 Gb Ethernet ports (NetXen) | 8 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Physical NICs | bnx2x 10 Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic) | 8 | |
| Physical NICs | tg3 1 Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom) | 16 with NetQueue enabled | 32 with NetQueue disabled. NetQue is enabled by default in vSphere 6.0. |
| ESXi Host Maximums : Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums | |||
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Virtual Machines per cluster | 8000 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Virtual machines per host | 1024 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Powered-on virtual machine config files per datastore in an HA cluster | 2048 | This limit does not apply to virtual disks. A virtual machine enabled with Fault Tolerance counts as two virtual machines. |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | FT virtual machines per cluster | 98 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | FT virtual machines vCPU per Cluster | 256 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Hosts per cluster | 64 | |
| Resource Pool | Resource pools per host | 1600 | |
| Resource Pool | Children per resource pool | 1600 | |
| Resource Pool | Resource pool tree depth | 8 | Additional 4 resource pools are used by system internals |
| Resource Pool | Resource pools per cluster | 1600 | Additional 4 resource pools are used by system internals |
| vCenter Server Maximums | |||
| vCenter Server Scalability | Hosts per vCenter Server | 1000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Powered-on virtual machines per vCenter Server | 10000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Registered virtual machines per vCenter Server | 15000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Linked vCenter Servers | 10 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Hosts in linked vCenter Servers | 4000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Powered-on virtual machines in linked vCenter Servers | 30000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Registered virtual machines in linked vCenter Servers | 50000 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | MAC addresses per vCenter Server (using default VMware OUI) | 65536 | |
| vCenter Server Scalability | Concurrent vSphere Web Clients connections to vCenter Server | 180 | |
| User Interface | USB devices connected per vSphere Client | 20 | |
| Concurrent operations | vMotion operations per host (1 Gb/s network) | 4 | |
| Concurrent operations | vMotion operations per host (10 Gb/s network) | 8 | |
| Concurrent operations | vMotion operations per datastore | 128 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Concurrent operations | Storage vMotion operations per host | 2 | |
| Concurrent operations | Storage vMotion operations per datastore | 8 | |
| Concurrent operations | Non-vMotion provisioning operations per host | 8 | |
| vCenter Server Windows embedded/packaged vPostgres | Hosts (with embedded vPostgres database) | 20 | |
| vCenter Server Windows embedded/packaged vPostgres | Virtual machines (with embedded vPostgres database) | 200 | |
| Content Library | Total content library items per VC (across all libraries) | 200 | |
| Content Library | Total number of libraries per VC | 20 | |
| Content Library | Total items per library | 200 | |
| Content Library | Maximum number of subscribers per library | 5 | This limit is applicable to libraries published by vCenter Server and not to third party libraries. |
| Host Profile | Profile created | 1200 | Limit is tested with hosts, powered on VMs and datastores. |
| Host Profile | Profile attached | 1000 | Limit is tested with hosts, powered on VMs and datastores. |
| vCenter Server Appliance | Hosts (with embedded vPostgres database) | 1000 | |
| vCenter Server Appliance | Virtual machines (with embedded vPostgres database) | 15000 | |
| vCenter Server Appliance | Hosts (with Oracle database) | 1000 | |
| vCenter Server Appliance | Virtual machines (with Oracle database) | 15000 | |
| vCenter Server Maximums : Storage DRS | |||
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Virtual disks per datastore cluster | 9000 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Datastores per datastore cluster | 64 | |
| Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) | Datastore clusters per vCenter | 256 | |
| Platform Services Controller | |||
| Domain/Replication | Maximum PSCs per vSphere Domain | 8 | |
| Domain/Replication | Maximum PSCs per site, behind a load balancer | 4 | |
| Domain/Replication | Maximum objects within a vSphere Domain (Users and Groups) | 1000000 | |
| Domain/Replication | Maximum tolerance for time skew between PSC nodes | 5 minutes | |
| Identity Source | Maximum Active Directory or OpenLDAP Groups per User for best performance | 1015 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| VMCA/Certificate | Maximum number of subordinate Certificate Authority servers in the chain within VMware Certificate Authority | 6 | |
| VMCA/Certificate | Maximum cryptographic hash used for PSC Node certificate | 1 | |
| VMCA/Certificate | Maximum RSA Public Key length used for PSC Node certificate | 16384 | |
| Enhanced Linked Mode/ Lookup Service | Maximum number of VMware Solutions connected to a single PSC | 4 | This limit is based on the test performed using only vCenter Server. |
| Enhanced Linked Mode/ Lookup Service | Maximum number of VMware Solutions in a vSphere Domain | 10 | A VMware Solution is defined as a product that creates a Machine Account and one or more Solution User (a collection of vSphere services) within the VMware Directory Service when the product is joined to the PSC, thus the vSphere Domain. The Machine Account and Solution User(s) are used to broker and secure communication between other Solutions available within the vSphere environment. In order to count against these maximums, the Machine Account and Solution Users must be fully integrated with all of the PSC’s available feature sets (Identity Management and Authentication Brokering, Certificate Management, Licensing, etc.) such that the product makes full use of the PSC. At this time, only vCenter Server is defined as a fully integrated solution and counts against these maximums. Partially integrated solutions, such as vCenter Site Recovery Manager, vCloud Director vRealize Orchestrator, vRealize Automation Center, and vRealize Operations, do not count against these defined maximums. |
| vCenter Server Extensions : VMware vCenter Update Manager | |||
| Concurrent Operations | VMware Tools scan per ESXi host | 90 | |
| Concurrent Operations | VMware Tools upgrade per ESXi host | 24 | |
| Concurrent Operations | Virtual machine hardware scan per host | 90 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| Concurrent Operations | Virtual machine hardware upgrade per host | 24 | |
| Concurrent Operations | VMware Tools scan per VUM server | 90 | |
| Concurrent Operations | VMware Tools upgrade per VUM server | 75 | |
| Concurrent Operations | Virtual machine hardware scan per VUM server | 90 | |
| Concurrent Operations | Virtual machine hardware upgrade per VUM server | 75 | |
| Concurrent Operations | ESXi host scan per VUM server | 75 | |
| Concurrent Operations | ESXi host remediation per VUM server | 71 | |
| Concurrent Operations | ESXi host upgrade per VUM server | 71 | |
| Concurrent Operations | Cisco DVS update and deployment | 70 | |
| vCenter Server Extensions : VMware vRealize Orchestrator | |||
| vCenter Orchestrator Maximums | Connected vCenter Server systems | 20 | |
| vCenter Orchestrator Maximums | Connected ESXi instances | 1280 | |
| vCenter Orchestrator Maximums | Connected virtual machines | 35000 | 15,000 per vRealize Orchestrator Cluster node. |
| vCenter Orchestrator Maximums | Concurrent running workflows | 300 | |
| VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache | |||
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Virtual flash resource per host | 1 | |
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Maximum cache for each virtual disk | 400 GB | |
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Cumulative cache configured per host (for all virtual disks) | 2 TB | |
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Virtual disk size | 16 TB | |
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Virtual host swap cache size | 4 TB | |
| Flash Read Cache Maximums | Flash devices per virtual flash resource | 8 | |
| VMware vSAN | |||
| vSAN ESXi host | vSAN disk groups per host | 5 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Magnetic disks per disk group | 7 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | SSD disks per disk group | 1 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Spinning disks in all diskgroups per host | 35 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Components per vSAN host | 9000 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Cache tier maximum devices per host | 5 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Capacity tier maximum devices per diskgroup | 7 | |
| vSAN ESXi host | Capacity tier maximum devices | 35 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| vSAN Cluster | Number of vSAN hosts in a cluster | 64 | |
| vSAN Cluster | Number of datastores per cluster | 1 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Virtual machines per host | 200 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Virtual machines per cluster | 6400 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Virtual machine virtual disk size | 62 TB | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Disk stripes per object | 12 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Percentage of flash read cache reservation | 100 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | Failure to tolerate | 3 for VM virtual disk size <= 16 TB | 1 for VM virtual disk size > 16 TB |
| vSAN virtual machines | Percentage of object space reservation | 100 | |
| vSAN virtual machines | vSAN networks/physical network fabrics | 2 | |
| Virtual Volumes | |||
| Virtual Volumes | Data Virtual Volume Size | 62 TB | |
| Virtual Volumes | Number of Virtual Volumes bound to a host | 64000 | |
| Virtual Volumes | Number of PEs per host | 256 | |
| Virtual Volumes | Storage Container size | 2^64 | |
| Virtual Volumes | Storage Container per host | 256 | |
| Virtual Volumes | Maximum outstanding PE I/O operations | 128 | The outstanding PE I/O operations is configurable up to 4096. |
| Virtual Volumes | Configured VPs per host | 128 | |
| Virtual Volumes | Maximum configured VVol managed storage arrays per host | 64 | |
| Network I/O Control (NIOC) | |||
| NIOC | Number of resource pools | 10000 | |
| NIOC | Number of uplinks per vds | 32 | |
| NIOC | Number of uplinks per host | 32 | |
| NIOC | Number of vNIC per host | 5120 | |
| NIOC | Max pNIC bandwidth | Approximately 10 Gbits/sec for 10G pNIC | Approximately 1 Gbits/sec for 1G pNIC |
| ESXi Host Maximums : VMDirectPath Maximums | |||
| VMDirectPath Maximums | VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per virtual machine | 16 |
Recommended Configuration Maximums
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| Maximum Type | Maximum | Recommended Maximum value | Description |
| VMDirectPath Maximums | SR-IOV Number of virtual functions | 1024 | SR-IOV supports up to 43 virtual functions on supported Intel NICs and up to 64 virtual functions on supported Emulex NICs. The actual number of virtual functions available for passthrough depends on the number of interrupt vectors required by each of them and on the hardware configuration of the host. Each ESXi host has a limited number of interrupt vectors. When the host boots, devices on the host such as storage controllers, physical network adapters, and USB controllers consume a subset of the total number of vectors. Depending upon the number of vectors these devices consume, the maximum number of potentially supported VFs could be reduced. |