Hi all,
I have been battling some slow storage issues with my setup and wanted to reach out to get some input on ideas on how to proceed.
To start with I will detail the environment:
3 ESXi hosts in the environment - for the purpose of this thread I am using two, one is the Management host (will be referred to as FreeNAS host) and another is my compute host (referred to as remote host).
The server is used as iSCSI for VMware, nfs / smb for media and plex.
FreeNAS host spec:
I have attached a document with the tests and results, I am not entirely sure how to test iSCSI performance and those networks from the host.
Happy to have any feedback or general guidance to improve this as it is at times unbearable!
One thought I had was moving the 192.168.63.x gateway down into the dell, but not sure how that would improve things.
Thanks!
I have been battling some slow storage issues with my setup and wanted to reach out to get some input on ideas on how to proceed.
To start with I will detail the environment:
3 ESXi hosts in the environment - for the purpose of this thread I am using two, one is the Management host (will be referred to as FreeNAS host) and another is my compute host (referred to as remote host).
The server is used as iSCSI for VMware, nfs / smb for media and plex.
FreeNAS host spec:
- Dell PowerEdge R710
- 2 Xeon x5670's
- 240gb DDR3 ECC Ram
- LSI HBA (flashed) in passthrough
- ESXi 6.7 with vSS
- On board Qlogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 nic
- 6 WD RED 6tb EFRX's in mirror
- 2 uplinks used from host - not lacp
- R720
- 2 x E5-2660's
- 128gb ram
- Onboard gigabit nic
- ESXi7
- 2 uplinks used from host - not lacp
- Access layer connecting both hosts (dell n2048)
- ports connecting to hosts are trunk ports
- Aggregation / L3 is trunked to this switch (cisco 3560)
- Cisco 3560 is connected to PFsense, installed on a Sophos XG430
- Jumbo frames is enabled on the access switch
- Jumbo frames is enabled on the cisco, however it does not support routed jumbo frames (read on to find out why this should not be an issue)
- jumbo frames enabled on pfsense
- Subnets relevant to FreeNAS
- 192.168.63.150 - primary nic to reach FreeNAS, the gateway for this subnet is terminated on the Cisco
- 10.55.0.0/24 - Storage network one and connected to interface one on the FreeNAS VM (terminated on the Dell)
- 10.56.0.0/24 - Storage Network two and connected to the second interface on the FreeNAS VM (terminated on the Dell)
- Both hosts can see all storage created and presented in FreeNAS (iSCSI) and can be used
- vmkpings from the hosts to the gateway and to the IP interface of the freeNAS are successful with df-bits and an mtu of 8972
- Datastores are attached with round robin policies
- FreeNAS is configured with two interfaces 10.55.0.9 and 10.56.0.9
- Bonding and LACP is not configured anywhere on the network, hosts or VMs
I have attached a document with the tests and results, I am not entirely sure how to test iSCSI performance and those networks from the host.
Happy to have any feedback or general guidance to improve this as it is at times unbearable!
One thought I had was moving the 192.168.63.x gateway down into the dell, but not sure how that would improve things.
Thanks!