iscsi and NC550SFP adapter

[glenn71]

Hi All,

I have HP NC550SFP adapters with ESXi 4.1 for a iscsi network (10G, flow control & jumbo frames configured).

So far my setup is using the 'iscsi software adapter' in vmware.. because I can't see any support for a iscsi hardware adapter for these NICs. My questions are:

1. Does the NC550SFP support a iscsi hardware adapter?

2. Should I be concerned used the iscsi software adapter with 10Gig?

Thanks for your time.. I am a iscsi newbie here.. so would like to get things correct before I put these into prod!

Glenn

[Walfordr · Accepted solution]

1. Does the NC550SFP support a iscsi hardware adapter?
2. Should I be concerned used the iscsi software adapter with 10Gig?

1. I see iSCSI listed on the specs on HP, but no confirmation that its a hardware iSCSI HBA.  It should be showing up under the Storage Adapters if it supports hardware iSCSI.

2. I don't think you should be concerned.  An hardware iSCSI HBA will take off some of the processing load and overhead of off the VMkernel (mainly CPU and memory).  But you may only see minimal difference with the newer processors and memory that we have in today's servers.

[glenn71]

Thanks very much for your help Walfordr.