How can a vSphere administrator ensure that two virtual machines never run on the same datastore in a datastore cluster, while permitting the VMs to be load-balanced?

An Intra-VM Anti-Affinity Rule applies to virtual disk files within a single VM, keeping that VM's VMDKs on different datastores - it does not govern placement of two separate VMs relative to each other.

A Storage DRS VM override lets an administrator configure individual VM placement settings within a datastore cluster, including keeping specific VMs on different datastores, without disabling SDRS automation for those VMs. This approach ensures the two VMs do not share a datastore while still allowing SDRS to perform load-balancing operations across the cluster.

Disabling Storage DRS for the VMs removes all automated load balancing and placement management for those VMs, which directly contradicts the requirement to permit load balancing.

An Inter-VM Anti-Affinity Rule prevents two VMs from sharing a datastore but is a hard constraint that can conflict with or restrict SDRS load-balancing flexibility compared to a VM override configuration.