VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV) Practice Exam

vFlash Read Cache is a feature available in VMware environments that allows virtual machines to utilize host-based flash storage for caching data. This capability significantly improves performance for workloads by enhancing the speed of data access. The minimum virtual hardware version required to use vFlash Read Cache is version 10.

Understanding why this specific version is required is essential. As virtualization technology evolves, newer features often depend on advancements made in virtual hardware versions. Virtual hardware version 10 introduced several enhancements that included support for features necessary for managing and utilizing vFlash Read Cache effectively. This version ensures that the virtual machine can take advantage of the underlying hardware capabilities provided by the ESXi hosts.

In earlier versions (like version 8 or 9), the architecture and resource management would not support the required operations and functionalities that vFlash Read Cache needs to provide the performance improvements it aims to deliver. Version 11 and above continue to enhance the capabilities of vFlash, but version 10 is the critical threshold for its introduction.