5100 Series suitable for iscsi?

[Jeff Roback]

In looking through the specs for the 5100EI's, the IRF Functionality makes them seem like they'd be ideal for iSCSI with systems like the p4000, except for one thing... the port buffer on these looks to be 85K per port (2 MB Shared), which is SIGNIFICANTLY below the P4000 best practice recomendation of 512K/port.    All of the procurve line of switches, from the 2910AI up through the 5400zl's have much higher per port buffers.   Interestingly, even the step-up model 5500EI shows the same 2 MB shared port buffer.

So given this, are the 5100EI/5500EI's even acceptable for iSCSI use?  If  not, are any of the switches with IRF reccomended for use with iSCSI?       The 3800 and its mesh stacking seems like it might make a good alternative, but it is significantly more expensive so I'd want to be sure I'm not missing something here....

Jeff

[paulgear]

I can't yet speak from personal experience on running iSCSI over the 5500EI (i'll be testing that in the next couple of weeks on my setup), but if larger buffers are an important consideration to you, then the 3800 or 5500HI would probably be appropriate models.

[Ian Vaughan]

5830 with "ultra deep" packet buffers are designed especially for data centre apps such as iSCSI.
They are quite a bit more expensive than the 51xx range though.
For the same price as a pair you might manage a 5406zl bundle.
P4000 & NetApp worked a treat over IRF'd 5800 stack that I built last year.
HTH