Maximum manageable storage per VM by ESX version
4.1: 32TB (vmdk) / 120TB (RDM)
5.0: 60TB (vmdk) / 3.75PB (RDM)
5.1: 60TB (vmdk) / 3.75PB (RDM)
5.5: 3.63PB (vmdk) / 3.75PB (RDM)
Note that the 60TB limit for 5.0 and 5.1 requires Update 1. Without this the limit is 24TB.
Exceeding the limits on ESX < 5.5 can result in VMFS heap exhaustion and data corruption!
More details:
ComponentESX 3.5 *ESX 4.0ESX 4.1ESX 5.0ESX 5.1ESX 5.5vCPUs488326464RAM64GB255GB255GB1TB1TB1TBDisk Size (VMDK)2TB2TB2TB2TB2TB62TBNumber of Disks606060606060RDM Size2TB2TB2TB64TB#64TB#64TB#Max Storage per VM (VMDK)32TB**32TB**60TB**60TB**3.63PBMax Storage per VM (RDM)120TB120TB3.75PB3.75PB3.75PBNICs101010101010* VMware has EOL support for 3.x**See limits related to VMFS heap at http://dlpx.co/1004424#RDM size is based on physical-mode RDMs. Virtual-mode RDM limits match VMDKs.
ESX 5.0, 5.1 VMFS addressable storage limit is 60TB when patches are applied
VMware KB-1004424, good blog post
Delphix Support Technical Bulletin: I/O Errors May Occur if VMware Heap Exhausted
ESX5.5 VMFS addressable storage limit is 3.63PB, performance max is 100TB
Note: MaxAddressableSpaceTB sets pointer-block cache for performance: default 32TB, max 128TB. Threshold where PB cache eviction starts is 80%: so 100 TB is maximum for performance. Details in this blog post.
References