# Supported storage protocols

HPE Morpheus VM Essentials supports different types of storage for storing virtual machines.

Local server storage
:   While local disks in the HVM hosts can be used to store virtual machines, using local storage doesn’t allow the virtual machines to be migrated live to other hosts and the virtual machines won’t be able to be recovered should the host fail.

External block storage
:   VM Essentials supports connecting to external storage arrays using either iSCSI or Fiber Channel, in both cases datastores using GFS2 (Global Filesystem 2) can be created on volumes exported to the hosts. With this type of storage, the minimum number of supported HVM hosts in a cluster is three (3).

NFS
:   VM Essentials can use NFS shares as external shared data stores, in this case the minimum number of HVM hosts in a cluster is two (2) if virtual machine availability is desired.

HPE Alletra MP B10000 Plugin
:   VM Essentials also includes an integration plugin that allows it to create storage volumes that are directly mapped to each virtual machine’s disk without needing an intermediary clustered filesystem thus simplifying management tasks and improving performance.

HPE SimpliVity
:   HPE also offers an HCI solution through HPE SimpliVity that allows the creation of high availability clusters using the hosts' local disk while enabling advanced data services like data reduction, backup and replication.