MD3000i Help

[jeffscott]

Hi all,

I'm having trouble using Veeam 6 in Direct SAN mode against my Dell MD3000i.

The problem is that when I attempt to use Direct SAN mode, my backup jobs that ordinarily take 5-6 minutes to complete when running in Network Mode, end up taking almost 2 hours. They do complete successfully, but they just take way longer than the Network Backups.

I've had a running open case with Veeam for about a month now and they have not been able to solve my issue.

I also opened a case with Dell to confirm that my configuration was correct between the Veeam Server and the MD3000i.

The only thing that I can come up with is that I only have 1 NIC available in the Veeam Server for use with iSCSI. The Dell tech couldn't confirm that this would cause the extremely slow performance. He just acknowledged that Yes, the performance would be better with 2 NICs.

Can anyone using a MD3000i chime in here as to how you have it working in Direct SAN mode?

Thanks,

Jeff

[foggy]

Jeff, what is your support case ID number?

[Gostev]

Also, searching this forum for MD3000i gives 52 results, did you have a chance to review those?

[jeffscott]

foggy, Case # is 5156789

Gostev, I did search (Which is how I new people were successfully using it in Direct SAN mode). Most of the posts were related to just getting the config correct. I know my config is correct because Dell has confirmed it and I can see the volumes and successfully backup from them (albeit extremely slowly)

As per Dell, I disabled some of the offloading features of the NIC driver for the iSCSI NIC and updated the driver to the latest version. (The offloading didn't make a difference. The driver update did make a difference. Prior to the driver update, the job was taking around 8 hours. After the update, the job took about 2 hours. (I realize there could be other factors in play, but nothing that should result in a 6 hour difference). However, the 2 hour job is still about an 1 and 50 minutes longer than normal via a Network Mode backup.

Thanks,

Jeff

[pcmmitham]

Jeff,

We had an MD300i in production, due to the limited number of iSCSI connections (2) and it's habbit of not reporting critical errors (We went 6 months without being aware that the cache batteries were fully discharged on both controllers) we chose to take it out of production. I dont think the MD3000i is a good device for enterprise data storage or VMware access (despite what Dell says) if you have the resources I'd get onto something that has much better throughput.

[jeffscott]

pcmmitham,

I understand your stance. I've seen other people state that it is slow as well. However, in our environment, it has been working fine. (In both regards to performance and reporting). In fact, I've just received an email last week regarding the cache battery. The only thing I wish it had is the ability to attach via SNMP from our InterMapper system. (It can send SNMP traps, but I haven't been able to get that to work with InterMapper either)

Thanks,

Jeff

[lobo519]

I have two of these and while they have worked pretty well for us in the past we are currently upgrading to a Equallogic 6100 because the 3000i is not on the vSphere 5 HCL.