Virtual NIC in VM: E1000 or VMXNET?

[Sven Duthoo]

Hello everybody on the forum,

Monday I dived for the first time into the wonderfull world of P4000 and when I got back up, I had a load of questions.
For some of them I could find answers through my best friend Google, but it seems Google doesn't know everthing. So I turn to the real experts and where can I find more experts than in this forum?

So my first question of the day is:
In a setup with ESX servers which are hosting some Windows application servers, I want to be able to take application aware snapshots.
To be able to do that, I need to attach my volumes to the virtual servers directly.
So I need to create a virtual NIC for my guest and the first question I get is the type of NIC: E1000, VMXNET2 or VMXNET3?

Does anybody have an idea which one I should use?

Thank you,

Sven

[Steven Clementi]

Did you read the differences?

When you go to select the type of NIC, there shold be a link that takes you to the web page (or help page) that explains what each are and how they exist in different operating systems.

Which version of ESX are we talking about here?


Steven

[Steven Clementi]

" http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001805 "

[Sven Duthoo]

Hi Steven,

Thank you for taking time to answer my question.
I did not notice the hyperlink you talked about, so thank you for pointing that out to me.
I've already read the KB now and I'm a bit ashamed to say that I still don't know which type would be the best choice.

We're working with Windows 2008 on vSphere 4.1 machines. So both types are possible I think.

Since the VMXNET3 is the "next generation" I guess I should go with this one.
Could anyone confirm this?

Kind regards,

Sven

[Steven Clementi]

I'd probably go with VMXNET2 or 3 since they support Jumbo Frames and are better suited for "higher" performance.


Steven

[Marcel-p4500 · Accepted solution]

Go for the VMXNET3 ...

VMXNET3 gives me the highest performance on my VM's.
With HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 i see VM network cards with 10GB speed ;-)