What type of storage technologies are commonly supported by VMware vSphere?

VMware vSphere supports a wide range of storage technologies that facilitate the performance and scalability necessary for virtualized environments. Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN, and NAS arrays are among the most commonly used storage solutions in enterprise settings. These technologies are designed to provide high availability, redundancy, and the ability to scale as workload demands increase.

Fibre Channel SANs offer high-speed data transfer rates and are well-suited for mission-critical applications and large databases. The use of iSCSI SANs allows for standard Ethernet networks to carry SCSI commands, enabling flexibility and cost savings compared to traditional Fibre Channel networks. NAS arrays provide shared storage that can be accessed over a network using standard protocols, making them ideal for file storage and sharing among multiple virtual machines.

The other options do not align with the typical infrastructure required for virtualization environments. For instance, while SSDs are valuable for high-performance applications, they represent only a part of the overall storage ecosystem supported by vSphere. Traditional tape drives are primarily used for backup and archiving purposes rather than as actively utilized storage in a virtualized setting. Additionally, personal storage devices are not designed for the enterprise-level performance, reliability, and scalability that VMware vSphere environments typically require.