VMware vSphere ESX and vCenter Configuration Maximums

The following listings are a comprehensive collection of configuration maximums from VMware products.

• Virtual Machine Maximums
• Host Maximums
• vCenter Server Maximums
• Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums
• Network Maximums
• Storage Maximums
• Fault Tolerance Maximums
• Virtual SAN Maximums

Virtual Machine Maximums

	ESX 8.0	ESX 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5	ESX 4.1	ESX 4.0	ESX 3.5	ESX 3	ESX 2	ESX 1
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine	768	256	128	128	128	64	64	32	8	8	4	4	2	1
RAM per virtual machine	24 TB	6128 GB	6128 GB	6128 GB	4TB	1TB	1TB	1TB	255GB	255GB	65GB	16GB	3,6GB	2GB
Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter	15	15	15	15	15	15
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine	60	60	60	60	60	60
Virtual NVMe adapters per virtual machine	4	4	4	4
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual SCSI adapter	15	15	15	15
Virtual NVMe targets per virtual machine	60	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	30
Virtual disk size	62TB	62TB	62TB	62TB	62TB	62TB	2TB	2TB	2TB	2TB	2TB	2TB
IDE controllers per virtual machine	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
IDE devices per virtual machine	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Floppy controllers per virtual machine	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Floppy devices per virtual machine	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Virtual NICs per virtual machine	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	4	4	4	4
USB controllers per virtual machine	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
USB devices connected to a virtual machine	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Serial ports per virtual machine	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32
Parallel ports per virtual machine	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	1
Concurrent remote console connections	40	40	40	40	40	40	40	40	40	40	10	10
Video memory per virtual machine	4 GB	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	512MB	512MB
NVDIMM controllers per VM	1	1	1
NVDIMM devices per VM	64	64	64
Non-volatile memory per VM	12 TB	6128 GB	6128 GB

ESXi Host Maximums

	ESX 8.0	ESX 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5	ESX 4.1	ESX 4.0	ESX 3.5	ESX 3	ESX 2	ESX 1
Logical CPUs per host	896	768	768	576	480	320	160	160	160	64	32	32	16	8
Virtual machines per host	1024	1024	1024	1024	1024	512	512	512	320	320	128	128	80	64
Virtual CPUs per host	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	2048	2048	512	512	128	128	80	64
Virtual CPUs per core	32	32	32	32	32	32	25	25	25	20	8	8	8	8
RAM per host	24TB	16TB	16TB	12TB	12TB	4TB	2TB	2TB	1TB	1TB	256GB	256GB	64GB	64GB
LUNs per server	1024	1024	1024	512	256	256	256	256	256	256
Non-volatile memory per host	12TB	12TB	1TB

vCenter Server Maximums

vCenter Server Maximums	vC 8.0	vC 7.0	vC 6.7	vC 6.5	vC 6.0	vC 5.5	vC 5.1	vC 5	vC 4.1	vC 4.0	vC 3.5	vC 3
Hosts per vCenter Server	2500	2500	2000	2000	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000	300	200	200
Powered on virtual machines	40000	40000	25000	25000	10000	10000	10000	10000	10000	3000	2000
Registered virtual machines	45000	45000	35000	35000	15000	15000	15000	15000	15000	4500	2000
Linked vCenter Servers	15	15	15	15	10	10	10	10	10	10
Hosts in linked vCenter Servers	15000	15000	5000	4000	4000	3000	3000	3000	3000	1000
Powered on virtual machines in linked vCenter	135000	135000	50000	30000	30000	30000	30000	30000	30000	10000
Registered virtual machines in linked vCenter	150000	150000	70000	50000	50000	50000	50000	50000	50000	15000
Number of host per datacenter	N/A	N/A	2000	2000	500	500	500	500	400	100
MAC addresses per vCenter Server	65536	65536	65536	65536	65536	65536	65536	65536
USB devices connected at vSphere Client	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	20	20	20	20

Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums

	ESXi 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5	ESX 4.1	ESX 4.0	ESX 3.5
Hosts per cluster	64	64	64	64	32	32	32	32	32	32
Virtual machines per cluster	8000	8000	8000	4000	4000	4000	3000	3000	1280
Virtual machines per host	1024	1024	1024	1024	512	512	512	320	100
Resource pools per cluster	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600	512	512	128
Resource pools per host	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600	1600		4096
Children per resource pool	1600	1600	1600	1600	1024	1024	1024	1024
Resource pool tree depth	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	12	12

Network Maximums

	ESX 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5	ESX 4.1	ESX 4.0	ESX 3.5	ESX 3
Total virtual network switch ports per host	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	4096	127
Maximum active ports per host	1016	1016	1016	1016	1016	1050	1016	1016	1016	1016
Virtual network switch creation ports	4088	4088	4088	4088	4088	4088	4088	4088	4088
Port groups	512	512	512	512	512	256	256	512	512	512
Distributed virtual network switch ports per vCenter	60000	60000	60000	60000	60000	60000	30000	20000	6000
Static port groups per vCenter	10000	10000	10000	10000	10000	10000	5000	5000	512
Ephemeral port groups per vCenter	1016	1016	1016	1016	1016	256	256	1016
Hosts per distributed switch	2000	2000	2000	1000	500	500	350	350	64
Distributed switches per vCenter	128	128	128	128	128	128	32	32	16

Storage Maximums

	ESX 7,0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5	ESX 4.1	ESX 4.0	ESX 3.5	ESX 3
Software iSCSI NICs per server	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
Number of total paths on a server	4096	4096	2048	1024	1024	1024	1024	1024
Number of paths to a iSCSI LUN	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
Software iSCSI targets	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	256
NFS mounts per host	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	64	64
FC LUNs per host	1024	1024	512	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	256
FC LUN ID	16383	16383	16383	1023	255	255	255	255	255	255	255
FC Number of paths to a LUN	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32
Number of HBAs of any type	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
HBA ports	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	16
Targets per HBA	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	256	15
Software FCoE adapters	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Volumes per host	1024	1024	512	256	256	256	256	256	256	256
Hosts per volume	64	64	64	64	64	64	64	64	64	32
Powered on virtual machines per VMFS volume	2048	2048	2048	2048	2048	2048	2048		256
Concurrent vMotion operations per datastore	128	128	128	128	128	128	128
Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per datastore	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
Concurrent Storage vMotion operations per host	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Concurrent non vMotion provisioning operations per host	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
VMFS Volume size	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB	64TB
Virtual disks per datastore cluster	9000	9000	9000	9000	9000
Datastores per datastore cluster	64	64	64	64	64
Datastore clusters per vCenter	256	256	256	256	256

Fault Tolerance Maximums

	ESX 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5	ESX 5.1	ESX 5.0
Virtual disks	16	16	16	16	16	16
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine	8	8	4	4	1	1	1
RAM per FT VM	128GB	128GB	64GB	64GB	64GB	64GB	64GB
Virtual machines per host	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Disk size	2 TB	2 TB	2 TB	2 TB

Virtual SAN Maximums

	ESX 7.0	ESX 6.7	ESX 6.5	ESX 6.0	ESX 5.5
Virtual SAN disk groups per host	5	5	5	5	5
Capacity tier devices per disk group	7	7	7	7	7
Cache tier devices per disk group	1	1	1	1	1
Spinning disks in all diskgroups per host	35	35	35	35	35
Components per Virtual SAN host	9000	9000	9000	9000	3000
Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster	64	64	64	64	32
Number of Virtual SAN nodes in a cluster (All-Flash)	64	32	32
Number of datastores per cluster	1	1	1	1	1
Virtual machines per host	200	200	200	200	100
Virtual machines per cluster	6400	6000	6000	6400	3200
Virtual machine virtual disk size	62TB	62TB	62TB	62TB	2032GB
Disk stripes per object	12	12	12	12	12
Percentage of flash read cache reservation	100	100	100	100	100
Percentage of object space reservation	100	100	100	100	100
Virtual SAN networks/physical network fabrics	2	2	2	2	2

All informations are based on VMware documentation:

• Configuration Maximums Portal
• vSphere 6.5 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 6.0 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 5.5 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 5.1 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 5.0 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 4.1 - Configuration Maximums
• vSphere 4.0 - Configuration Maximums
• Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 U2 - Configuration Maximums
• Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 - Configuration Maximums
• Virtual Infrastructure 3 - Configuration Maximums