On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Jeff Wheeler <j...@inconcepts.biz> wrote: > On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Eric Germann <egerm...@limanews.com> wrote: >> I'm looking for a recommendation on a smallish 10G Ethernet switch for a >> small virtualization/SAN implementation (4-5 hosts, 2 SAN boxes) over >> iSCSI with some legacy boxes on GigE. > >> 1Gbps. Assessing whether it is better to go 10G now vs. multi-pathing >> with quad GigE cards. Trying to find the best solution for > 1G on a >> trunk and < $50K per box. > > Certainly the days of doing NxGE to servers should be behind us. > There are many good 10GE switch offerings. The Juniper QFX and Arista > (insert one of three good product lines here) have been excellent for > us. We like them for different reasons -- Arista is quite good if you > want to integrate with a provisioning system; QFX is our choice when > most provisioning is done manually. Both are way under $50k per box. > > The biggest difference between the TOR-style switches and chassis > offerings, aside from the obvious, is buffers. All the TOR-type 10G > switches have really small buffers and that can be a performance issue > for iSCSI when utilization is high. Most of the chassis-type switches > have very generous buffers so you do not run into problems with > micro-bursting, etc. The vendors will all tell you about lossless > ethernet, flow control, etc. and that crap sounds great on paper. Try > making it actually work. You'll want those days of your life back. :)
I'm curious if anyone here has experience with the Extreme Summit X650 or X670 switches? I'm also currently looking for 10GBASE-T switch for my first SAN, but one with 48 ports. The price for X670V-48T seems reasonable, but I have no experience with 10 GbE over copper, so it's difficult to figure out what criteria to use (other than price) when comparing Extreme, Arista, Dell, and others. Any tips? - Max