Performance of bnx2i with open-iscsi on CentOS 5.3

[Christopher Chen]

Hi there--

I just got a new machine with the Broadcom 5709 iSCSI offload enabled.
I thought I'd try it out.

Because the machine was a dell, I used the provided dkms packages for
bnx2i version 1.2.14--this is on kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5xen.

I wasn't expecting any miracles, but write speed looks to be about
half full software initiator speed, and read speeds are below 1MB/sec.

With the software initiator I was seeing near wire speeds, 111MB/sec
write, 90MB/sec reads...

Anyone else have similar experiences with the Broadcom offload engine?

Cheers

cc

--
Chris Chen <muff...@gmail.com>
"The fact that yours is better than anyone else's
is not a guarantee that it's any good."
-- Seen on a wall

[Srini]

Hi Chris,

Can you please post the configuration how you did setup the target and
client ? please.

Cheers,
Srini.

On Aug 31, 6:02 pm, Christopher Chen <muffal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi there--
>
> I just got a new machine with the Broadcom 5709 iSCSI offload enabled.
> I thought I'd try it out.
>
> Because the machine was a dell, I used the provided dkms packages for
> bnx2i version 1.2.14--this is on kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5xen.
>
> I wasn't expecting any miracles, but write speed looks to be about
> half full software initiator speed, and read speeds are below 1MB/sec.
>
> With the software initiator I was seeing near wire speeds, 111MB/sec
> write, 90MB/sec reads...
>
> Anyone else have similar experiences with the Broadcom offload engine?
>
> Cheers
>
> cc
>
> --

> Chris Chen <muffal...@gmail.com>

[Srini]

Hi Chris,

Can you please post the configuration how you did setup the target and
client ? please.

Cheers,
Srini.

On Aug 31, 6:02 pm, Christopher Chen <muffal...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi there--
>
> I just got a new machine with the Broadcom 5709 iSCSI offload enabled.
> I thought I'd try it out.
>
> Because the machine was a dell, I used the provided dkms packages for
> bnx2i version 1.2.14--this is on kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5xen.
>
> I wasn't expecting any miracles, but write speed looks to be about
> half full software initiator speed, and read speeds are below 1MB/sec.
>
> With the software initiator I was seeing near wire speeds, 111MB/sec
> write, 90MB/sec reads...
>
> Anyone else have similar experiences with the Broadcom offload engine?
>
> Cheers
>
> cc
>
> --

> Chris Chen <muffal...@gmail.com>

[Mike Christie]

Christopher Chen wrote:
> Hi there--
>
> I just got a new machine with the Broadcom 5709 iSCSI offload enabled.
> I thought I'd try it out.
>
> Because the machine was a dell, I used the provided dkms packages for
> bnx2i version 1.2.14--this is on kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5xen.
>
> I wasn't expecting any miracles, but write speed looks to be about
> half full software initiator speed, and read speeds are below 1MB/sec.
>
> With the software initiator I was seeing near wire speeds, 111MB/sec
> write, 90MB/sec reads...
>
> Anyone else have similar experiences with the Broadcom offload engine?
>

I forgot about this thread. I have not seen this before. I have not used
the dkms bnx2i driver before though. Cent OS 5.4 has a native bnx2i
driver and the iscsi-initiator-utils tools that come with 5.4 support
bnx2i. Try them out.