# Adding an NFS Datastore

Existing NFS shares can be used with HVM clusters for virtual machine storage. These are added and viewed from the Storage tab of the cluster detail page and, once added and active, become selectable as targets for virtual machine storage.

NOTE

Ensure NFS is properly configured to allow all of the HVM hosts to access the shared directory, including permissions to read and write. For backup purposes, it’s also helpful to give VM Essentials access to NFS.

Start by navigating to the Storage tab of the cluster detail page. Make sure the Data Stores subtab is also selected. Here you will see a list of existing datastores with some additional information, such as type, capacity, and status. Click ADD. Enter the NAME for the datastore in VM Essentials and select the TYPE as NFS Pool. Note that the datastore name cannot be changed once it has been created. This will update the available fields to include the additional fields needed to integrate the NFS server. Enter the SOURCE HOST which is the hostname or the IP address of the NFS server. Finally, enter the SOURCE DIRECTORY which is the directory path of the NFS share. Click SAVE.

Once the modal is saved, it will take a few minutes to initialize the new datastore and show a successful online status in VM Essentials. Once this initialization process is completed, the datastore can now be used as VM storage for cluster.
