Generally, you'll have your NAS/SAN connected to a switch (call it switch1). Switch1 will also be connected to the servers that use the NAS/SAN for iSCSI.
The servers that use the NAS/SAN will also have other NICs that are connected to a different switch (call it switch2). Clients that pull data from the servers will be connected to switch2, or some other set of switches that are connected to switch2. Switch1 (and all of the iSCSI traffic) will therefore be isolated from client/server traffic. So, yes, all data that resides on the iSCSI server (SAN) will go through the server(s) that are connected to the iSCSI network. It doesn't *have* to be that way, but if you configure it a different way, then you have complexities that you would do well to research and carefully consider - especially if you will have more than one machine talking with an iSCSI LUN at a time. Kurt On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 12:28 PM, J- P <[email protected]> wrote: > My thought is/was to connect them to the network. > the confusion is from my lack of understanding of iscsi - the way > interpreted it is that if i have an iscsi target served by a windows > server, then ALL traffic MUST go through the server to access anything > in that target (so even if i have 20gb on nas/iscsi target ) im still > limiteduby the servers bandwidth. Is that correct? > > ________________________________ > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 11:15:06 -0800 > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Synology LUNS and iscsi > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > > Well you're limited to 2GB on the host side regardless of how you configure > the NAS ports. Aggregating the ports on the NAS will make the most efficient > use of throughput to handle IO from multiple hosts. > > Out of curiousity, are you planning to attach the NAS to your network or > direct connect the hosts to the NAS? Your questions lead me to believe you > were considering the latter. > > - Sean > > On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 11:04 AM, J- P <[email protected]> wrote: > > Im just unclear on one thing, hoping someone can enlighten me- as im new > to iscsi > if i vlan or group the 4 nics, but the server only has 2- (current setup ) > > Doesn't all the traffic have to go through the servers 2 NICs? Essentially > reducing everything down to 2Gb? > > Or am i totally off with that thought process ? > > > ________________________________ > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Synology LUNS and iscsi > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 10:26:28 -0800 > To: [email protected] > > No reason. Best practice would be to isolate the iSCSI traffic on a separate > VLAN and configure the group address. I would imagine some type of port > aggregation is supported by the NAS (LACP) so configure that on your switch > for all 4 ports. I prefer to use at least one dedicated interface on the > host side for iSCSI. You can configure the initiator to communicate via that > interface. Also, if supported by the NAS and your switch, jumbo frames will > provide better performance. > > If you can't isolate on a separate VLAN, still create the port group on your > switch for the 4 ports. > > - Sean > > On Mar 25, 2015, at 9:48 AM, J- P <[email protected]> wrote: > > yes. should I then group/cluster 2 NICs for each server ? > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Synology LUNS and iscsi > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 09:45:00 -0800 > To: [email protected] > > Do you ever plan on allocating storage to other servers? > > - Sean > > On Mar 25, 2015, at 9:18 AM, J- P <[email protected]> wrote: > > ok, but if I group/cluster the 4x 1GB NICs, but the server only has 2x 1GB > NICs , isn't that like trying to put 4 cars on a 2 lane street ? limiting > the bandwidth at 2GB? > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] Synology LUNS and iscsi > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 16:44:34 +0000 > > To the iscsi, I’m not familiar with Synology, but does it have a “group IP”, > AKA cluster IP, that you always access and works across all four NICs? If > so, then you will likely use that group IP as your target. If it supports > MPIO, you could then connect from both server NICs. > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of J- P > Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 9:07 AM > To: NT > Subject: [NTSysADM] Synology LUNS and iscsi > > Hi all, > > Just got the 8 bay synology in, I Have 5 drives in raid10 with a hot spare > (total usable 12TB) > > I see that I have the Option for Block-level or File level LUNS, I see > that the file level has more options (thin provisioning among others) > > This NAS will only house data (will not run VM's off them , not yet at > least) a large portion of the will be media (Video footage) > > Q1. Does anyone recommend or advise one format (Block-Level File-Level) over > the other? > > Q2. Second question may seem dumb but I have never used iscsi before so bear > with me & forgive my ignorance > > The Synology has 4x 1GB nic ports, the Hyper V server (w2012) only has 2x > 1GB ports, as this will be an iscsi target am I correct in thinking that > unless my server gets 2 more NIC cards, there will be no benefit to using > the 4 NICs on the Synology? > > My thought is (assuming the above is accurate) would be to create 2 LUNS , > one for iscsi target, using 2 NICs, and second one for direct access to > Synology using the other 2 NICs. > > TIA > > > > > > > Jean-Paul Natola > > >
