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iSCSI in ESXi on Dell Blades

Does anyone have experience with Dell Blades, ESXi and iSCSI?

We are setting up a new production VMware environment. It will be Dell Blades (M710HD) connected to EqualLogic iSCSI boxes via 10GB. We have 3 options for making the iSCSI connections.

Broadcom 57711 10GB - hardware iSCSI offload, but no JumboFrames (not supported at this time)

Broadcom 57711 10GB - software iSCSI, optional JumboFrames

Intel X520 (82599) 10GB - software iSCSI, optional JumboFrames

I have both mezz cards on hand and am trying to do some testing inside of VMs using IOMeter. But, so far, nothing definitive.
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Paul Solovyovsky
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Jumbo frames also need to be enabled on your physical switches and SAN to work effectively, otherwise you'll be clipping frames left and right
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Shaktur

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Thanks for all the input. I was really hoping to find someone with real world experience with these.

Based on our own testing, we are going with:

Intel X520 (82599) 10GB - software iSCSI, optional JumboFrames