---
subcategory: "Storage"
page_title: "VMware vSphere: vsphere_datastore"
sidebar_current: "docs-vsphere-data-source-datastore"
description: |-
  Provides a data source to return the ID of a vSphere datastore object.
---

# vsphere_datastore

The `vsphere_datastore` data source can be used to discover the ID of a vSphere
datastore object. This can then be used with resources or data sources that
require a datastore. For example, to create virtual machines in using the
[`vsphere_virtual_machine`][docs-virtual-machine-resource] resource.

[docs-virtual-machine-resource]: /docs/providers/vsphere/r/virtual_machine.html

## Example Usage

```hcl
data "vsphere_datacenter" "datacenter" {
  name = "dc-01"
}

data "vsphere_datastore" "datastore" {
  name          = "datastore-01"
  datacenter_id = data.vsphere_datacenter.datacenter.id
}
```

## Argument Reference

The following arguments are supported:

- `name` - (Required) The name of the datastore. This can be a name or path.
- `datacenter_id` - (Optional) The
  [managed object reference ID][docs-about-morefs] of the datacenter the
  datastore is located in. This can be omitted if the search path used in `name`
  is an absolute path. For default datacenters, use the `id` attribute from an
  empty `vsphere_datacenter` data source.

## Attribute Reference

The following attributes are exported:

- `id` - The ID of the datastore.
- `stats` - The disk space usage statistics for the specific datastore. The
  total datastore capacity is represented as `capacity` and the free remaining
  disk is represented as `free`.

[docs-about-morefs]: /docs/providers/vsphere/index.html#use-of-managed-object-references-by-the-vsphere-provider