So first off, the build (to get that out of the way):
For our file storage, we've got a Windows 2012R2 VM on the aforementioned vmdk store. We then attached the storage volume via another network path (using the 2nd Chelsio NIC) to our ESXi hosts, and used Windows built-in iSCSI utility to mount that storage. That went smoothly and all is well.
At this point we're seeing about 18-22mb SMB transfers - at least write, I haven't tested read - from Windows clients on the network to shares on that Windows file server VM. Not bad, that's about what they're used to from our old NetApp SMB shares. These files are office documents, AutoCAD files, InDesign, ArcGIS, etc. - lots of smallish files (1mb - 300mb)
Most of the posts I've read out there when it comes to FreeNAS iSCSI with Windows is with HyperV, so I'm hunting around seeing if anyone else does something what we're doing.
So my questions would be...
Does that sound like performance we should expect?
Are there tweaks to the vmxnet3 drivers we should consider on the Win2012 VM?
Am I missing any points that I should be investigating into further?
Thanks in advance!
- Supermicro 6027R-E1R12L
- Two E5-2620 CPUs
- 192Gb of ECC RAM
- vmdk zvol store: 8 800gb Intel S3700 SSDs in mirrored pairs (2x4) - essentially RAID10.
- Storage zvol: 12 2Tb WD Re SAS in mirrored pairs (2x6)
- Intel P3600 ZIL (I don't remember if I set that to sync for the storage dataset, but it's on for the VM store)
- two Chelsio 10Gb nics
- no L2ARC
- Medium sized office, about 80 users on Windows 7
- Brocade 6610 switches serving 10Gb to our servers, and 1Gb to our workstations - no jumbo frames, all CAT5e
- The vmdk iSCSI and storage iSCSI share connections between two Brocade switches, for failover purposes
For our file storage, we've got a Windows 2012R2 VM on the aforementioned vmdk store. We then attached the storage volume via another network path (using the 2nd Chelsio NIC) to our ESXi hosts, and used Windows built-in iSCSI utility to mount that storage. That went smoothly and all is well.
At this point we're seeing about 18-22mb SMB transfers - at least write, I haven't tested read - from Windows clients on the network to shares on that Windows file server VM. Not bad, that's about what they're used to from our old NetApp SMB shares. These files are office documents, AutoCAD files, InDesign, ArcGIS, etc. - lots of smallish files (1mb - 300mb)
Most of the posts I've read out there when it comes to FreeNAS iSCSI with Windows is with HyperV, so I'm hunting around seeing if anyone else does something what we're doing.
So my questions would be...
Does that sound like performance we should expect?
Are there tweaks to the vmxnet3 drivers we should consider on the Win2012 VM?
Am I missing any points that I should be investigating into further?
Thanks in advance!