Mounting Datastores
with Existing Signatures
You can mount a
VMFS datastore copy without changing its signature if the original is not
mounted.
For example, you can maintain
synchronized copies of virtual machines at a secondary site as part of a
disaster recovery plan. In the event of a disaster at the primary site, you can
mount the datastore copy and power on the virtual machines at the secondary
site.
You can
mount a VMFS datastore only if it does not conflict with an already mounted
VMFS datastore that has the same UUID.
When you mount the VMFS
datastore,
ESXi
allows
both read and write operations to the datastore that resides on the LUN copy.
The LUN copy must be writable. The datastore mounts are persistent and valid
across system reboots.