VMware vSphere NFS best practices

The following best practices are recommended:

• Use 100 to 400 vmdk files per NFS volume. The maximum possible logical unit number (LUN) is 256 for a maximum size of 64 TB per NFS volume. (Manufacturers can provide information about the limit supported by file systems, usually 16 TB.)

• Separate the network dedicated to storage from the Ethernet network by using dedicated switches or VLANs.

• Activate flow control.

• Activate jumbo frames by using dedicated switches with large per-port buffers.

• Activate the Spanning Tree Protocol.

• Use a 10-Gb network (strongly recommended).

• Use full TOE cards to unload ESXi host servers.

• To isolate storage traffic from other networking traffic, use either dedicated switches or VLANs for your NFS and iSCSI traffic

 

Note for Jumbo frame:

All devices sitting in the I/O path must be able to implement jumbo frames for this to provide the full benefits (array controller, physical switches, network interface cards and VMkernel ports).A common issue with jumbo-frame configurations is that the MTU value on the switch isn’t set correctly. In most cases, this must be higher than the hosts and storage that are typically set to 9,000. Switches must be set higher, for example, to 9,198 or 9,216, to account for IP overhead.