An administrator needs to configure a storage solution for a vSphere 6.x implementation with these characteristics: Snapshot support vMotion Capability Clustering across multiple ESXi hosts Database…

A VMDK on a shared VMFS datastore does not natively support the shared-disk locking required for multi-host clustering applications like MSCS without enabling multi-writer mode, which carries significant functional restrictions.

Virtual Mode RDM presents the raw LUN to the VM through a virtual SCSI adapter while preserving vSphere management capabilities: it supports snapshots, vMotion, multi-host shared-disk clustering (such as MSCS or Oracle RAC), and vFlash Read Cache, satisfying every stated requirement. The direct LUN access also delivers the low-latency, high-throughput I/O characteristics needed for a high-transaction database application. Physical Mode RDM provides similar I/O benefits but lacks snapshot support, vFlash Read Cache, and vMotion compatibility, making Virtual Mode RDM the correct choice.

Physical Mode RDM does not support vSphere snapshots, vFlash Read Cache, or vMotion, eliminating it despite its direct storage access performance advantage.

vSAN uses its own distributed caching architecture and does not support vFlash Read Cache as a separate feature, failing to meet that specific stated requirement.