NFS storage is also a NAS, like iSCSI. Therefore, it can be easily integrated into the existing TCP/IP network. Unlike, iSCSI, NFS is not a block storage system, meaning NFS maintains its filesystem. Hence, ESXi cannot format or form a new filesystem on the volumes presented to it from an NFS array. Instead, the NFS volumes (also called exports) are configured as mount points to remote shares on an NFS storage array.
VMware introduced support for NFS 4.1 starting with vSphere 6.0:
- It now supports AES encryption.
- It supports for IPv6.
- It supports for Kerberos' integrity checking mechanism.
You can create both NFS 3 and NFS 4.1 datastores on ESXi.
