iSCSI write performance vSphere 7 and MSA2060

[Fred-M]

Hello Community and Support,

i got an issue with a MSA2060 storage connected on an vSphere 7 Server and hope you got an idea how to fix this.

The vSphere Server is equipped with a 2x10GB SFP+ NIC which is attached with 2x10GB Switches and those with the MSA2060 on two Interfaces on both controllers. Everything (Server, IO Interfaces ... ) is Vmware HCL verified.
The Storage is equipped with 12xSSDs, DP+. (Full Flash Storage), Network connections all done with DAC and no other traffic than iSCSI is permitted on this subnet. MTU is set to 8900 on all Devices (Portgroup, vSwitch, Switch and Storage)

Server IPs: 10.0.1.1 / 10.0.2.1
Storage Controller A: 10.0.1.2, 10.0.2.2 (This is where the volume is created)
Storage Controller B: 10.0.1.3, 10.0.2.3 (Just Failover)

I'am using the iSCSI Software Adapter which is working fine, all Paths are shown, VMW_SATP_ALUA and Round Robin is active.

When starting a speedtest on a VM, the test is giving me:
About 600MB write and 1050 MB read performance and about 6500 Iops on write, and about 9800 Iops on read performance at the storage side.

The difference between write and read Performance seems to be huge considering this is a full flash storage with 2x10GB Round Robin connection.

When adding more VM's and start a speedtest in parallel, the read performance adjusts very well (Even 900MB Read on 3 simultaneous jobs), the write performance drops down to ~250 MB per Job.

Are there any performance steps which should be taken? I read disable the "Delayed ACK" Setting on the vSphere may solve this issue, but the results are the same.

Maybe someone of you was facing the same problem and know how to improve the write performance.

Thanks in advance,
Fred

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. VMware vSphere 6.5 Migration Guide for HPE Hyper Converged 380 1.1 Update 2 and HC250

2. VMware vSphere 6.5/6.7 Migration Guide For HPE Hyper Converged 380 1.1 Update 2 and HPE Hyper Converged 250

Please click on "Thumbs Up/Kudo" icon to give a "Kudo".

Thank you for being a HPE valuable community member.

[ArunKKR · Accepted solution]

Hi,  The only setting that seems to be missing as per the description is settings IOPS value to 1. https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2069356. I believe that the controller and hard drive firmware is latest. The difference in read and write performance seems to be as expected as per the values shared in MSA quickspecs sheet (Pages 30 and 31):  https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00094629enw.pdf?jumpid=in_pdp-psnow-qs

[Fred-M]

Hello ArunKKR,

your are right, i got in touch with the professional and very nice support and they gave me some adivce like

• Missing Lun response to illegal request (what was the case)
• Enabling PSP Policy (What was also the case)
• Set IOPS to 1 (What was not the case, it was set to 1000)

Latest Firmware on storage and server side.

After that i run a IOMeter Test, like they did in the specsheet you provided, and i think now iam getting the best performance possible.

Thanks a lot,
Greetings,
Fred