VMware Virtual Machine and ESXi Maximums
VMware Virtual Machine and ESXi Maximums:
Every product has its limits, and the same is applied to VMware vSphere. In this blog, I am sharing the maximum supported configuration of three recent versions of vSphere – 8.0, 7.0, 6.7, 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5. This information is very useful in the Solution Designing and Infrastructure Planning phase. Although there are very few chances that we reach this limit still it should be known so that during the configuration of virtual and physical equipment, we must stay at or below the maximum supported values by VMware vSphere (ESXi maximums).
Virtual Machine Maximums:
This table shows the maximum limits of Virtual Machine (VM) components like vCPU, vMEM, Virtual Disk, vNIC and Graphic video device memory.
| Virtual Machine Parameters | ESXi 5.5 | ESXi 6.0 | ESXi 6.5 | ESXi 6.7 | ESXi 7.0 | ESXi 8.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vCPUs per VM | 64 | 128 | 128 | 256 | 768 | 768 |
| RAM per VM | 1 TB | 4 TB | 6 TB | 6 TB | 24 TB | 24 TB |
| Virtual disk size per VM | 62 TB | 62 TB | 62 TB | 62 TB | 62 TB | 62 TB |
| Virtual NICs per VM | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Virtual SCSI adapters per VM | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Virtual SCSI targets per VM | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Virtual NVMe adapters per VM | - | - | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Virtual NVMe targets per VM | - | - | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Video memory per VM | 512 MB | 512 MB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| PCI passthrough devices | - | - | - | - | 16 | 64 |
Compute Maximums (ESXi Maximums):
ESXi Host maximum represents the top limit of ESXi parameters like maximum CPU Core, logical CPUs, Memory etc.
| Compute Parameters | ESXi 5.5 | ESXi 6.0 | ESXi 6.5 | ESXi 6.7 | ESXi 7.0 | ESXi 8.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logical CPUs per host | 320 | 480 | 576 | 768 | 896 | 896 |
| NUMA Nodes per host | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Virtual machines per host | 512 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Virtual CPUs per host | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 |
| Virtual CPUs per core | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| RAM per host | 4 TB | 12 TB | 12 TB | 16 TB | 24 TB | 24 TB |
ESXi Storage Maximums:
Storage related maximum configurations of VMware ESXi are part of below table.
| ESXi Storage Parameters | ESXi 5.5 | ESXi 6.0 | ESXi 6.5 | ESXi 6.7 | ESXi 7.0 | ESXi 8.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual Disks per Host | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 |
| LUNs per server | 256 | 256 | 512 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Software iSCSI NICs per server | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Number of total paths per server | 1024 | 1024 | 2048 | 4096 | 128 | 2048 |
| Number of paths to a LUN (software+hardware iSCSI) | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 32 | 32 |
| Software iSCSI targets | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| NAS: NFS mounts per host | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| FC: Number of HBAs of any type | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Software FCoE adapters | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| VMFS Volume size | 64 TB | 64 TB | 64 TB | 64 TB | 64 TB | 64 TB |
| Volumes per host | 256 | 256 | 512 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Hosts per volume | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 128 | 16 |
| Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 |
| Concurrent vMotion operations per VMFS volume | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
ESXi Networking Maximums:
The below table represents the maximum supported values of Networking related parameters like the number of NICs, switches, ports etc.
| ESXi Networking Parameters | ESXi 5.5 | ESXi 6.0 | ESXi 6.5 | ESXi 6.7 | ESXi 7.0 | ESXi 8.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | up to 32 | up to 32 | up to 32 |
| igb 1Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) | 16 | 16 | 16 (ibgn) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| tg3 1Gb Ethernet ports (Broadcom) | 32 | 32 | 32 (ntg3) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| bnx2 1Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic) | 16 | 16 | 16 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| ixgbe 10Gb Ethernet ports (Intel) | 8 | 16 | 16 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| bnx2x 10Gb Ethernet ports (QLogic) | 8 | 8 | 8 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Combination of 10Gb and 1Gb ethernet ports | Eight 10Gb and Four 1Gb ports | Sixteen 10 Gb and four 1 Gb ports | Sixteen 10 GB and four 1 GB ports | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| mlx4_en 40GB Ethernet Ports (Mellanox) | 4 | 4 | 4 (nmlx4_en) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Combination of Physical NICs between 10Gb to 100Gb and 1Gb | N/A | N/A | N/A | up to 16 (10Gb to 100Gb) and up to 16 (1Gb) ports | up to 16 (10Gb to 100Gb) and up to 16 (1Gb) ports | up to 16 (10Gb to 100Gb) and up to 16 (1Gb) ports |
| 10 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | up to 16 | up to 16 | up to 16 |
| 20 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | up to 16 | up to 16 | up to 16 |
| 25 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 40 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| 50 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| 100 Gb Ethernet ports | N/A | N/A | N/A | 4 | 4 | 4, up to 8 |
| SR‐IOV Number of virtual functions | 64 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| SR‐IOV Number of 10G pNICs | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| VSS portgroups per host | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Distributed switches per host | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS ports) | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 |
| Maximum active ports per host (VDS and VSS) | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 | 1016 |
| Virtual network switch creation ports per standard switch | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 | 4088 |
| Port groups per standard switch | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Ports per distributed switch | 60,000 | 60,000 | 60,000 | 60,000 | 60,000 | 60,000 |
| VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per virtual machine | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 64 |
The above limits are tested, recommended and fully supported by VMware. But It can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies. That’s why before taking any decision please check the hardware compatibility.
Ref: VMware vSphere Configuration Maximums (Link)
For Configuration Maximums of other products and solutions, like vCenter Server , vSAN, vCloud Directors, please read my next blogs.
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