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So, I am in the process of building out a iSCSI system based off freeNAS. This is being connected to a few (around 20ish) ESXi 5.5 boxes. These ESXi boxes only have the boot drive and a few Gb of local storage (something like 30gb SSD's). I am in the process of upgrading the network, and I am finding that there are little to no options for iSCSI between 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s. There has been talk of a 10GB/s backbone to the distribution switch, however that is still not fast enough. I have looked into fiber channel, however it seems to be unsupported by freeNAS until the next release.

Any suggestions for a iSCSI medium between 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s ?

Henry S.
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    I can't find a question in here - what, specifically are you trying to achieve - what is the problem? – James Yale May 08 '15 at 17:11
  • Appologys. I am looking for something between 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s that iSCSI can run on, ideally cheaper then 10Gb/s. – Henry S. May 08 '15 at 17:13
  • Maybe you will have a much better result on https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com . If your question will be closed, I suggest to re-ask this there. – peterh May 09 '15 at 10:34

2 Answers2

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Have you considered bonding multiple 1Gb connections? FreeNAS supports FreeBSD lagg groups.

If you've got a managed switch at the other end it's likely you'll be able to configure it to support LACP trunks.

James Yale
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  • I have, but I was looking for another solution in order to present multiple options. So far I have LAGG groups, or a 10Gb/s setup. – Henry S. May 08 '15 at 17:17
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    When it comes to iSCSI Link Aggregation often isn't the right choice. What you may want instead is Multipath IO. – Zoredache May 08 '15 at 18:40
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Assuming you're using ethernet as your medium. There are no other speed standards for ethernet switches. You have 1gb and 10gb as your options. You could get some blade chassis and do interesting things with the interconnects to get specific speeds, or go fiber with 4/8/16gb connections, or go direct SAS connections (3/6/12gbs) but, as you noted, support for those options may be limited.

Rex
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