Rough estimate for speed advantage of SAN-via-fibre to san-via-iSCSI when using VMware vSphere

Posted by Dirk Paessler on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Dirk Paessler
Published on 2009-06-02T09:21:23Z Indexed on 2010/04/14 20:54 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 395

Filed under:

vmware

|

iscsi

|

fibre-channel

|

virtualization

|

san

We are in the process of setting up two virtualization servers (DELL R710, Dual Quadcore Xeon CPUs at 2.3 Ghz, 48 GB RAM) for VMware VSphere with storage on a SAN (DELL Powervault MD3000i, 10x 500 GB SAS drives, RAID 5) which will be attached via iSCSI on a Gbit Ethernet Switch (DELL Powerconnect 5424, they call it "iSCSI-optimized").

Can anyone give an estimate how much faster a fiber channel based solution would be (or better "feel")? I don't mean the nominal speed advantage, I mean how much faster will virtual machines effectively work?

Are we talking twice the speed, five times, 10 times faster? Does it justify the price?

PS: We are not talking about heavily used database servers or exchange servers. Most of the virtualized servers run below 3-5% average CPU load.

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about vmware

VMware sort VMware Go Pro sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour PME, passerelle vers VMware vSphere

as seen on Developper.com - Search for 'Developper.com'
VMware sort VMware Go Pro Sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour PME, passerelle vers VMware vSphere VMware vient d'annoncer la sortie de sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour les PME : VMware Go Pro. VMware Go Pro a pour principal objectif de faciliter les efforts de virtualisation… >>> More
vmware network installation problem

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
After installation from vmware_bunddle it shows network device error during configuration(First run). Log File: 2012-04-03T20:01:24.881+06:00| vthread-3| I120: Log for VMware Workstation pid=5766 version=8.0.2 build=build-591240 option=Release 2012-04-03T20:01:24.881+06:00| vthread-3| I120: The… >>> More
Run Windows in Ubuntu with VMware Player

as seen on How to geek - Search for 'How to geek'
Are you an enthusiast who loves their Ubuntu Linux experience but still needs to use Windows programs? Here’s how you can get the full Windows experience on Ubuntu with the free VMware Player. Linux has become increasingly consumer friendly, but still, the wide majority of commercial software… >>> More
I'm trying to install VMWare tools on Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS and I seem to have a problem with Kernel headers

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS installed on a VMware machine on Windows 7 host. I seem to have a problem with Kernel headers when trying to install them I did: sudo apt-get install gcc make build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading… >>> More
VMWare player - compiling server modules - Ubuntu 13.10

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
While running Ubuntu 13.04 whenever the Linux kernel had been updated, this used to make vmware player happy: sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all Yesterday I upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10 and lo and behold, the above workaround does not work anymore: Unable… >>> More

Related posts about iscsi

Removing an iSCSI Target - iSCSI initiator 2.0 on Windows Server 2003 R2

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
For the life of me I cannot figure out how to remove an iSCSI target (Dell Equallogic SAN) from a Windows Server 2003 box. The volume shows up in Windows as drive letter Y:\ Using the iSCSI initiator, I can remove the Target Portal, but cannot remove the Target itself. Can someone give me some… >>> More
AIX: iscsi volumes disappear after reboot

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
We have an IBM P505 AIX box, with two internal disks and a defined iSCSI volume. The iSCSI volume is defined in it's own volume group, and is connected to an IBM iSCSI DS3300 disk array via the secondary onboard ethernet port (ie, we're not using a dedicated HBA, we're using the second onboard ethernet… >>> More
How to connect SAN from CentOS through two iSCSI Targets

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I had asked the similar question before. This time I want to use subnet for two iSCSI Targets, hence I start a new question. I have an old Promise VTrak M500i SAN Server. It comes with 2 iSCSI ports. I want to connect to two LUNs on the SAN server through two separate Targets from CentOS 5.7 64bits… >>> More
Can single ESXi host make use of two separete iSCSI box?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi! I have problem with using multiply iSCSI targets with single ESXi host (in my case they are two FreeNAS hosts, but I suspect that this problem will occur with any two iSCSI box of that same type/model). If I configure two FreeNAS hosts as iSCSI targets (say iSCSI A and iSCSI B), then I can use… >>> More
Problems with 2 ISCSI connections esxi 3.5

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am running a dell poweredge 1950 with 4 nic cards. 1 is bonded to SAN #1 on 192.168.90.xx. The second SAN is on a separate network - 192.168.7.xx The network adapter can view the ip range of the san and the NIC can be pinged from 192.168.7.xx range. vswitch1 and vswitch2 are configured identically… >>> More