Install Synology NFS VAAI Plug-in for VMware
In the recent DSM update (5.1), Synology added VMware VAAI support for NFS volumes using two primitives which are Full File Clone and Reserve Space. What do these VAAI primitives offer?
- Full File Clone enables virtual disks to be cloned by the NAS albeit while the machine is powered off.
- Reserve Space allows you can create a thick VMDK file. However Reserve Space does not off-load the work to the array. The benefit of thick VMDKs is that many use eager-zero for high I/O performance needs.
On the Synology side of things you just need to update to DSM 5.1, but in order to take advantage of VAAI you still need to install the VIB plugin on your ESXi 5.5 hosts.