Configuration maximum comparison for VMware vSphere 5.0, 5.1 and 5.5

Here I have summarized the comparison with a list of selected features between vSphere ESXi 5.0, 5.1 and 5.5. I have skipped some of the features for detailed overview on all the comparison factors please visit vmware's official website.

ESXi Virtual Machine Maximum

Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Virtual CPUs per virtual machine
32
64
64
RAM per virtual machine
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine
60
60
60
Virtual Disks per virtual machine
60
60
60
Virtual NIC per virtual machine
10
10
10
Concurrent remote console connection per virtual machine
40
40
40
Virtual disk size
2 TB
2 TB
62 TB
Video memory per virtual machine
128 MB
128 MB
512 MB

ESXi Host maximum

Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Logical CPUs per host
160
160
320
Virtual machine per host
512
512
512
Virtual CPUS per host
2048
2048
4096
Virtual CPUs per core
25
25
32
FT Virtual Disks
16
16
16
RAM per FT virtual machine
64
64
64
FT virtual machine per host
4
4
4
FT virtual CPUs per virtual machine
1
1
1

Memory Maximum
Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
RAM per host
2 TB
2 TB
4 TB
No of swap files per virtual machine
1
1
1
Swap file size
1 TB
1 TB
NA

Storage Maximum
Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Virtual Disks per host
2048
2048
2048
LUNs per server
256
256
256
Broadcom 1Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server
4
4
4
Broadcom 10Gb iSCSI HBA initiator ports per server
4
4
4
No. of total paths on a server
1024
1024
1024
No. of paths to a LUN
8
8
8
Software iSCSI targets
256
256
256
LUNs per host
256
256
256
LUN size
NA
64 TB
64 TB
No. of paths to a LUN
32
32
32
No. of total paths on a server
1024
1024
1024
No. of HBAs of any type
8
8
8
HBA ports
16
16
16
Targets per HBA
256
256
256
Concurrent vMotion operations per datastore
128
128
128
Concurrent storage vMotion operations per datastore
8
8
8
Concurrent storage vMotion operations per host
2
2
2
Concurrent vMotion operations per host (1Gb/s network)
4
4
4
Concurrent vMotion operations per host (10Gb/s network)
8
8
8
Cluster and resource pool maximums
Items
Maximum

vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Hosts per cluster
32
32
32
Virtual machine per cluster
3000
4000
4000
Virtual machines per host
512
512
512
Resource pools per host 
1600
1600
1600
Children per resource pool
1024
1024
1024
Resource pools per cluster
1600
1600
1600
vCenter Server maximums
Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Hosts per vCenter Server
1000
1000
1000
Powered‐on virtual machines per vCenter Server
10000
10000
10000
Registered virtual machines per vCenter Server
1500
1500
1500
Linked vCenter Servers
10
10
10
Hosts in linked vCenter Servers
3000
3000
3000
Concurrent vSphere Client connections to vCenter Server
100
100
100
Number of host per datacentre
500
500
500
Registered virtual machines in linked vCenter Servers
50000
50000
50000

Storage DRS

Items
Maximum
vSphere 5.0
vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.5
Virtual disks per datastore cluster
9000
9000
9000
Datastores per datastore cluster
32
32
32
Datastore clusters per vCenter
256
256
256

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