iSCSI hardware recommendations

[EricTrentMiller]

I just had a SANS Digital EN104L+B (below) die on us after less than two weeks of service, and it was SLOOW before it broke.  Our problem was just like this guy's problem:

http://www.sansdigital.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=190&func=view&id=1568&catid=10#1568

Before that we had openfiler which worked fine, thinking about going back to that.

However, we liked that the SANS digital was all in one unit and didn't require a host server like openfiler does.

are there any iSCSI units in the 1K - 2K range  like this one  that don't suck?

http://www.sansdigital.com/elitenas/en104lplusb.html

[a_p_]

I can't help you with a recommendation for an iSCSI alliance in this price range, however before going back to Openfiler please read http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026596.

André

[vmroyale]

Hello.

I have had great results with the Iomega ix4-200r using NFS.  It is on the HCL, but remember it is still just 4 spindles!

Good Luck!

[EricTrentMiller]

is that a recent development?  I thought OpenFiler was a known good / cheap option for an ESX environment?

man...that sucks.

[EricTrentMiller]

i was just about to say "no way, I need it to be faster than NFS", but I did some research before putting foot in mouth.

how can this be possible?

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

There is usually very little tested differnce between iSCSI and NFS. The simplicity of NFS wins out for me.

[lowteck]

prolly wont find a 10gb NFS solution for 1-2K.

You have any older servers lying about you could setup with vsa ?

low

[DSTAVERT]

Most smaller NAS devices do support multiple protocols. It is common to have iSCSI, CIFS and NFS plus others like ftp and webdav.

[lowteck]

question about Figure 19 there...

why do NFS and iSCSI w/ Jumbo Frames have lower performance?

low

[EricTrentMiller]

lowteck wrote:

prolly wont find a 10gb NFS solution for 1-2K.

openfiler does NFS, so does that same SANS digital

I'm guessing the iSCSI limitation on openfiler doesn't exist with NFS

You have any older servers lying about you could setup with vsa ?

unless you know something I don't....thats a 30 day trial only?

[EricTrentMiller]

lowteck wrote:

question about Figure 19 there...

why do NFS and iSCSI w/ Jumbo Frames have lower performance?

low

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/01/07/fc-vs-nfs-vs-iscsi/

[lowteck]

my bad, forgot lefthand sold out.

figured someone else would pickup that slack...

low

[lowteck]

I meant with 10GB nics , not storage size.

and then there's the 10GB switches...

low

[lowteck]

Looks like vmwares other san appliance vendors are pricey too (Falconstor & StorMagic)

StorMagic's is only free up to 2TB...

low

[DSTAVERT]

For iSCSI disk IO in ESX(i) behaves more like file access than block access.

[lowteck]

was looking into the ReadNAS 2100 as a cheap nas.

http://searchsmbstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid188_gci1525838,00.html

looks like it has an option for 10gb nics as well...

low

[EricTrentMiller]

is NFS really a better alternative than iSCSI?

how did I get so misled?

:smileycry:

[lowteck]

I don't think the verdict is in yet...

http://thesantechnologist.com/?p=52

low

[EricTrentMiller]

lowteck wrote:

I don't think the verdict is in yet...

http://thesantechnologist.com/?p=52

low

good post.

did you see the pdf it linked to?

more good charts in there.

bottom line is that FC/iSCSI/ and NFS all seem to be within single digit percentages of each other.

http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3697.pdf

[DSTAVERT]

I wouldn't consider it a better alternative. It is only one of the alternatives. You can spend an insane amount of money for a NetApp NFS device so it isn't about low end versus high end. They are just two different approaches to providing datastore storage.