VMware Getting Started - Networking Tips
10 Gigabit Network Configurations on VMware vSphere
By default, the SoftNAS® VM (on VMware vSphere) ships with the default E1000 virtual NIC adapter and VMware defaults to MTU 1500.
For best performance results above 1 Gigabit, follow the steps outlined below:
Use MTU 9000 instead of MTU 1500 for vSwitch, vmKernel and physical switch configurations. Be sure to configure the network interface in SoftNAS for MTU 9000 also.
A dedicated VLAN for storage traffic is recommended. For VMware, refer to the Performance Tuning for VMware vSphere section for details.
iSCSI Multi-pathing
To increase performance throughput and resiliency, use of iSCSI multipathing is recommended by VMware and other vendors.
Since SoftNAS operates in a hypervisor environment, it is possible to configure multi-path operation as follows:
On the VMware host where the SoftNAS® VM runs, install and use multiple physical NIC adapters.
Assign a dedicated vSwitch for each incoming iSCSI target path (one per physical NIC).
Assign the SoftNAS® VM a dedicated virtual NIC adapter for each incoming iSCSI target path (per vSwitch physical NIC).
Assign a unique IP address to each corresponding Linux network interface (for each virtual NIC attached to the SoftNAS® VM).
Restart the SoftNAS iSCSI service and verify connectivity from the iSCSI initiator client(s) to each iSCSI target path.
A dedicated VLAN for storage traffic is recommended.