Hey Guys, wanted to toss up my results from CrystalDiskMark.

The specs:

VMHosts x2: HP DL360 G5, 48GB RAM, 2x Quad Core Intel Xeon E5440
DSS (Build 3513) x2: HP DL185 G5, 16GB RAM, 2x Dual Core AMD Opteron 2222

Each host is interconnected using an HP ProCurve 6400cl 10GbE CX4 Switch. The DSS use Intel 10GbE Dual Port NICs. The VMWare hosts use HP NC510C 10GbE NICs which are NetXen-based.

I have setup various raids on the DL185's ranging from RAID1, RAID5 and RAID 10 for various purposes. Total of 12 VMs banging on these iSCSI targets, Web, AD, Dev, Production, Exchange, App, SQL, etc.

I posted up some stats below, as you can see the volumes using the new vSphere PVSCSI adapters have marginal gains over the LSI vAdapter.

Host: vSphere 4
RAID10: Test Size - 100 MB
Sequential Read : 151.480 MB/s
Sequential Write : 171.616 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 131.722 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 162.868 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 15.041 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 9.244 MB/s

Host: vSphere 4
RAID10: Test Size - 100 MB
(using vSphere Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter)
Sequential Read : 155.421 MB/s
Sequential Write : 190.273 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 134.943 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 164.925 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 15.467 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 9.128 MB/s

Host: vSphere 4
RAID10: Test Size - 500 MB
Sequential Read : 145.413 MB/s
Sequential Write : 174.385 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 142.806 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 161.506 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 14.969 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 9.010 MB/s

Host: vSphere 4
RAID10: Test Size - 500 MB
(using vSphere Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter)
Sequential Read : 143.798 MB/s
Sequential Write : 188.390 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 141.653 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 160.541 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 15.167 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 8.875 MB/s

Host: vSphere 4
RAID5: Test Size - 100 MB
(using vSphere Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter)
Sequential Read : 143.009 MB/s
Sequential Write : 198.469 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 139.717 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 176.305 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 15.423 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 10.126 MB/s

Host: vSphere 4
RAID5: Test Size - 500 MB
(using vSphere Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter)
Sequential Read : 143.936 MB/s
Sequential Write : 172.709 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 137.879 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 165.089 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 15.266 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 9.280 MB/s

Host: ESX 3.5u3
RAID5: Test Size - 100 MB
Sequential Read : 203.508 MB/s
Sequential Write : 147.203 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 175.661 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 132.862 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 14.152 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 8.836 MB/s

Host: ESX 3.5u3
RAID10: Test Size - 100 MB
Sequential Read : 204.186 MB/s
Sequential Write : 139.369 MB/s
Random Read 512kb : 191.251 MB/s
Random Write 512kb : 123.909 MB/s
Random Read 4kb : 13.830 MB/s
Random Write 4kb: 4.903 MB/s

I concluded that the overall iSCSI performance on vSphere 4 has been increased over 3.5u; however with decreased Read performance it seems.

Feedback?

Drew
1parkplace Inc.