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Box293
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Broadcom 57711 + ESX/ESXi 4.1 + Jumbo Frames

Having some issues getting Broadcom 57711 NIC working on ESX/ESXi 4.1 with MTU 9000.

On ESX/ESXi 4.0 U2 I have no problems getting and MTU of 9000 working, I can push our EQL PS6010 SAN pretty hard and get about 550,000 KBps with IO Meter running inside 4 x VM's.

I have read documentation and have found that only an MTU of 1500 is supported for the 57711 NIC's on ESX/ESXi 4.1. This has somethig to do with the fact that these NICs have hardware iSCSI offloading, there are additional iSCSI adapters that appear under the storage adapters section on 4.1 hosts.

I have it all properly configured with 1:1 binding of the iSCSI nics to the iSCSI VMK ports using an MTU of 1500. When configured this was the max I can get out of the SAN is about 280,000 KBps. If I try the same process using an MTU of 9000 the VM's / host seem to stop responding.

While I understand that there is a limitation of 1500 when using the hardware iSCSI NICs I am unable to get the software iSCSI to work with an MTU of 9000 on ESX/ESXi 4.1. If I try software iSCSI using an MTU of 9000 the VM's / host seem to stop responding.

Is this also a limitation or am I missing something.

Is there anyone else out there experiencing the same problems as me?

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

VCP3 & VCP4 32846 VSP4 VTSP4
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RobFisher
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Jumbo Frames will give you at least double the performance, so, I would take the small hit on the CPU using Software iSCSI, and use Jumbo Frame for sure.

Best Regards,

Rob

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