topic Re: Can vSwap be in different tier disk? in VMware Solutions Discussions

Can vSwap be in different tier disk?

NAMAN — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 18:54:18 GMT

We're setting up a new vSphere environment in multi tier storage. As I want to separate the vswap files in a different datastore from where the OS lives, I was thinking to redirect the swap files to less expensive SATA drives rather than SAS where OS datastores are. I remember one of the TRs I read in the past recommended that all datastores in the same cluster should have same type of disks. So do I have to redirect the vSwap to another SAS datastore? or is it OK to redirect to SATA datastore which will be in another datastore cluster? or should I put the vswap datastore out of any cluster at all?

Re: Can vSwap be in different tier disk?

asulliva — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 16:55:08 GMT

Hello @NAMAN,

There is no technical reason that you can not put the vswp files onto a different tier of disk, or even a completely different storage array. The recommendation to use the same datastore(s) as the OS disks is to simply avoid additional configuration complexity, which often leads to errors and other inefficiencies.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

Re: Can vSwap be in different tier disk?

forgosh — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:19:10 GMT

The vSwap location is set on the ESXi host and can be on any datastore or any disk type. The only time that vSwap comes into play is in cases where the memory is oversubscibed, which should be avoided for Virtual Desktops. If memory is not oversubscribed, the vSwap file is a sparse file which consumes no disk space and is recreated on VM reboot or vMotion. As such, if memory is not being oversubscribed, then the vSwap is not consuming any disk space so there is no reason to redirect it.

Seth