Host Datastore System APIs
This managed object creates and removes datastores from the host.
To a host, a datastore is a storage abstraction that is backed by one of several types of storage volumes:
- **Local file system**
- A datastore that is backed by a local file system volume uses a host native local file system such as NTFS or ext3. The datastore is created by identifying a file path for a directory in which virtual machine data will be stored. When the datastore is deleted, the mapping from the datastore to the file is deleted. The contents of the directory are not deleted.
- **NAS Volume**
- A datastore that is backed by a network-attached storage device is created by specifying the required data needed to attach the volume to the host. Destroying the datastore detaches the volume from the host.
- **VMFS**
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A datastore that is backed by a VMware File System (VMFS) is created by specifying a disk with unpartitioned space, the desired disk partition format on the disk, and some VMFS attributes.
An ESX Server system automatically discovers the VMFS volume on attached Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) on startup and after re-scanning the host bus adapter. Datastores are automatically created. The datastore label is based on the VMFS volume label. If there is a conflict with an existing datastore, it is made unique by appending a suffix. The VMFS volume label will be unchanged.
Destroying the datastore removes the partitions that compose the VMFS volume.
See also Datastore.