vSAN is supported on both the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch™ (VDS) and the vSphere standard switch (VSS). No other third-party virtual switch types are supported with vSAN. For most designs, the vSphere Distributed Switch offers advantages through the inclusion of the VMware vSphere Network I/O Control and QoS features.

The benefit of using vSphere Distributed Switch configurations is that they allow Network I/O Control to be used, which allows for prioritization of bandwidth when there is contention in an environment. In addition, the vSphere Distributed Switch using Network I/O Control is an attractive option for environments that employ a limited number of 10-GbE network ports, because it allows the interfaces to be shared, while it prioritizes bandwidth in contention scenarios.

For these reasons, VMware recommends using a vSphere Distributed Switch for the vSAN port group, so that priority can be assigned using Network I/O Control to separate and reserve the bandwidth for vSAN traffic in the environment.