Hi all,
Please help me to understand the best way to achive maximum performance in following scenario.
I have a standalone ESXi host and a HPE MSA 1050 storage shelf.
MSA has 4 1GbE iSCSI ports. ESXi has a 4-ports 1GbE NIC dedicated for SAN traffic. Both MSA and ESXi are connected to Cisco switch stack.
Ports of MSA Controller A have IPs 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2, Controller B - 192.168.2.1 and 192.168.2.2. Subnet A and subnet B are in different VLANs.
![esx-san.jpg esx-san.jpg](https://wbsdv95928.lithium.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85769iD3FE4600F05C0CE8/image-size/large/is-moderation-mode/true?v=v2&px=999)
What would be the best way to get maximum performance here? I see following options:
- Create 4 VMKernel NICs for each physical NIC of server, assign IPs (2 in subnet A and 2 in subnet B) and use MPIO Round-Robin (but I am not sure if it would work without vSphere and if all 4 server NICs would be really utilized)
- Combine 4 physical NICs of server to 2 port channels for subnets A and B, create 2 VMKernel NICs and use MPIO Round-Robin (still not sure if ESXi would utilize all MSA controller ports...)
- Place all MSA controller ports to the same subnet and use iSCSI VMKernel binding? Would it work on a standalone ESXi?
- ???
The goal is to get kind of link aggregation (2x1 GBit) for connection between server and each controller of MSA.
Thank you.