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This is more of a general question. &nbsp; I am very well aware of making sure that the blocks are aligned within VMDK files by starting at a 64 byte offset (there are loads of articles on this). &nbsp;<br />
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However my question has to do with virtual disks on a vmdk file that has a 1MB/2MB/4MB block size. &nbsp; When I provision new virtual machine with a data drive of 200GB, when I go to format that new volume, what should the block size be within the guest OS? &nbsp;By making it 4, 16, 64K, does this have any performance impact or is this all irrelevant as block sizes within the guest OS no longer apply to a physical disk but rather a 'disk file' or vmdk file.<br />
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Which then brings up the next point, depending on where that file is located, I guess the block layout would need to be applied to all VMDK files - e.g. &nbsp;SANs, NFS NAS mounted storage, etc. <br />
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Many thanks<br />
Jon
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This is more of a general question.   I am very well aware of making sure that the blocks are aligned within VMDK files by starting at a 64 byte offset (there are loads of articles on this).  

However my question has to do with virtual disks on a vmdk file that has a 1MB/2MB/4MB block size.   When I provision new virtual machine with a data drive of 200GB, when I go to format that new volume, what should the block size be within the guest OS?  By making it 4, 16, 64K, does this have any performance impact or is this all irrelevant as block sizes within the guest OS no longer apply to a physical disk but rather a 'disk file' or vmdk file.

Which then brings up the next point, depending on where that file is located, I guess the block layout would need to be applied to all VMDK files - e.g.  SANs, NFS NAS mounted storage, etc. 

Many thanks
Jon

Formatting Block/Strip Size within a Virtual Environment

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.

Virtualization

This topic area includes legacy versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000: Windows 3/3.1, Windows 95 and Windows 98, plus any other Windows-related versions including Windows Mobile.