Home > Storage > PowerStore > Virtualization and Cloud > Dell PowerStore: VMware vSphere Best Practices > Volume and VMFS datastore sizing
When a volume is created on PowerStore, the best practice is to create a volume no larger than needed and use a single VMFS partition on that volume.
While the maximum datastore size can be up to 64 TB, we recommended beginning with a small datastore capacity and increase it as needed. Right-sizing datastores prevents accidentally placing too many virtual machines on the datastore and decreases the probability of resource contention. Since datastore and VMDK sizes can be easily increased if a virtual machine needs extra capacity, it is not necessary to create datastores larger than required. For optimal performance, the best practice is to increase the number of datastores rather than increase their size.
If a standard for the environment has not already been established, the recommended starting size for a VMFS datastore volume is 1 TB as shown in the following figure.
You can increase the size of VMFS datastores in PowerStore Manager by modifying a volume’s properties and increasing the size. After rescanning the storage adapters on the ESXi hosts, increase the VMFS partition size. Open the wizard, right-click the datastore, and select Increase Datastore Capacity. The best practice is to extend datastores using contiguous space within a single volume, and to avoid spanning volumes due to recovery complexity.
Note: The VSI plug-in can automate the process of increasing the size of datastores with only a few clicks.