This KB article presents the details about the nConnect feature in ESXi NFS client.

 

• From ESXi 8.0U1 release onwards, users will see a new option "number of connections" -c in esxcli, while mounting NFS Version 3 datastores.

• The nConnect feature provides facility to add multiple connections to an NFSv3 datastore. This feature is currently available only through esxcli and not through vCenter UI. Also, Host profiles feature is not available yet for nConnect.

• When adding a new NFSv3 datastore, the number of connections can be specified at the time of the mount using the command:

esxcli storage nfs add -H <host> -v <volume-label> -s <remote_share> -c <number_of_connections>

• The maximum number of connections per NFSv3 datastore are limited to 4 by default, however it can be increased to 8 using advanced NFS option.

esxcfg-advcfg -s 8 /NFS/MaxConnectionsPerDatastore

• The total number of connections used across all mounted NFSv3 datastores are limited to 256.

ESXi 8.0U1 release

•  For an existing NFSv3 datastore, the number of connections can only be increased at run time using the following command:

esxcli storage nfs param set -v <volume-label> -c <number_of_connections>

• Remounting NFS datastore is the only option to reduce number of connections.

• 8.0U1 nConnect is an initial release laying ground work for future functionality. In this release, performance gain and performance factors like CPU usage, CPIO etc are not validated.

ESXi 8.0U2 release

• For an existing NFSv3 datastore, the number of connections can be increased or decreased at run time using the following command:

esxcli storage nfs param set -v <volume-label> -c <number_of_connections>

• NFS datastore need not be unmounted to decrease connections.

Note: For 8.0U1 and 8.0U2 releases, the default number of connections from NFS Version 3 client to NFS server is 1.
 

Related KBs,
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/91481
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/91687