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johnny
Asked: 2016-02-05 15:11:26 +0800 CST

Is a switch is an iSCSI "mode" required for iSCSI targets?

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If I have a switch, nothing special set up, just regular traffic, no jumbo frames, no special iSCSI set up, can I still have iSCSI traffic, say from a Windows machine using the iSCSI initiator and a SAN across that uses said switch device?

Granted I might want to use the jumbo frames, but do I need a switch that has an iSCSI "mode"?

EDIT: I have a Dell Powerconnect 6224 and it has an option for iSCSI enable. Right now I have iSCSI running on it with no jumbo frames. It's a very small set of devices.

switch

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    No - iSCSI runs over IP, the switch doesn't need to know how to specifically handle it for iSCSI to run.

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  2. Dell's iSCSI mode just tracks targets and initiators, all you should really be doing is follow the specific best practices for that switch/SAN, usually this is

    MTU 9k+ (Force10 use 12k)

    Flow control rx on tx off

    Never do port channels, each interface should have a single ip, use multipath to aggregate links.

    Avoid vlan tagging

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