NVMe-Native HCI. RAID-6 Efficiency. RAID-1 Speed.
VMware vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture (ESA) — a ground-up redesign for NVMe TLC flash delivering up to 70% more usable capacity, 10× better mixed workload performance, and lower HCI TCO than the original architecture.
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ESA is built from the ground up for NVMe TLC flash devices. A single unified storage pool per host replaces the OSA cache/capacity tier model — eliminating the cache tier bottleneck and making every NVMe device contribute to both performance and capacity.
ESA's new erasure coding engine delivers RAID-6 storage efficiency (fewer drives needed for fault tolerance) with write performance comparable to RAID-1 mirroring — a combination previously impossible at HCI scale.
ESA's redesigned compression engine works in-line with dramatically improved ratios for database and VM workloads. Combined with RAID-6 erasure coding, this is how ESA delivers 70% more usable capacity from the same hardware.
vSAN is managed entirely within vCenter Server — storage policies, health monitoring, performance dashboards, and capacity planning are all part of the vSphere UI. No separate management stack, no extra training.
Define storage requirements (availability, performance, encryption) as VM-level policies in vCenter. vSAN automatically enforces policies across the cluster — storage administration becomes policy declaration rather than manual configuration.
vSAN native encryption protects VM data at rest without requiring self-encrypting drives — a software-defined encryption layer managed through vCenter with support for external key management servers (KMIP).
VMware vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture (ESA) represents a fundamental reimagining of hyperconverged infrastructure storage — moving beyond the original two-tier (cache + capacity) model to a purpose-built, single-tier architecture designed for the NVMe era. Available as a subscription through VMware by Broadcom, ESA is the recommended architecture for all new vSAN deployments on certified ReadyNode hardware.
At the core of ESA is a new storage engine that processes and stores data in a fundamentally more efficient way. By eliminating the distinction between cache and capacity tiers, every NVMe TLC device in the host contributes to both read/write performance and usable storage. This architectural change, combined with a redesigned compression engine and new RAID-5/6 erasure coding schemes, enables up to 70% more usable capacity from the same hardware compared to vSAN OSA.
Performance improvements in ESA are substantial and consistent across workload types. Independent benchmarks show 7.4× improvement for NoSQL-type 8K random read/write workloads, 8.3× for file system 16K workloads, and 10.6× for SQL database 32K mixed workloads. These gains come from the elimination of the write-buffer bottleneck inherent in the OSA cache-tier model, combined with the superior parallelism of NVMe-native access patterns.
vSAN ESA requires certified ReadyNode hardware — validated platforms from Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Cisco, Fujitsu, IBM, and Supermicro. Licensing is subscription-based through VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF), both now sold per core with vSAN capacity included. The result is a fully software-defined storage platform managed entirely within vCenter, requiring no separate storage management tooling or expertise.
ESA's 10.6× SQL workload performance improvement makes vSAN the fastest HCI platform for Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP HANA — delivering SAN-comparable IOPS and latency from hyperconverged infrastructure.
vSAN underpins VMware Cloud Foundation — the complete private cloud SDDC stack combining vSphere compute, vSAN storage, NSX networking, and Aria management in a fully integrated platform.
500+ VMs per host capacity and sub-millisecond latency make vSAN ESA an ideal storage platform for large-scale Horizon VDI deployments — with storage policies enforcing per-desktop performance SLAs.
vSAN stretched clusters synchronously replicate VMs and storage across two data centres with a third-site witness — providing zero-RPO / near-zero-RTO business continuity without dedicated storage replication hardware.
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