NFS or iSCSI

[PaulVM]

I have a NetApp 2240 and have to dedide whether to use NFS or iSCSI. Normally I'd choose NFS but I've not deployed Veeam before.

Will Veeam directly read the NFS storage for backups or will it utilise the ESXi hosts?

I guess what I'm really asking which has the best performance backup wise. Note I can Etherchannel the NFS storage to give 2GB from the Veeam server and the NetApp

[Gostev]

Personally, I would go with iSCSI and direct SAN access mode. Your question is covered in great details in the sticky FAQ topic. Thanks.

[PaulVM]

Do I need the Enterprise Version of vSphere for the Hot Add mode if using NFS with Virtual Applicance Mode?

What sort of times would you expect to be able to backup 1TB of data using:
a) iSCSI and Direct SAN Attach
b) NFS and Virtual Applicance Mode

Thanks

[Gostev]

Hot Add processing mode will work with any vSphere edition.

Performance depends heavily on storage and backup infrastructure, and may vary up to 10 times from environment to environment. NFS and VA mode is generally limited to 30-60 MB/s (most typically reported numbers), while iSCSI and direct SAN can go as fast as the line speed if the storage allows (with proper iSCSI traffic tuning).

[PaulVM]

Assuming 30MB/s then I could back up 1TB in just under 10 hours.

Even with 1GB NICs and iSCSI SAN direct access I cannot see throughput being above 50MB/s due to networking limitations or am I being daft?

[dellock6]

To further increase the confidence in Virtual Appliance mode, I can say I've seen even better numbers using our LeftHand cluster, tipically around 80 MBs, with some spikes at 90. Not as fast as Direct SAN (110-120 MBs) but really usable.

[tkimnguyen]

Personally, I would go with iSCSI and direct SAN access mode. Your question is covered in great details in the sticky FAQ topic. Thanks.

Did you mean in veeam-backup-replication-f2/read-this-f ... 17633.html ? I see only two mentions of iSCSI and there is no comparison made with other types.

[Gostev]

You can safely ignore everything that was written here as this thread is over 10 years old. Since then we added many new transport modes, direct integration with leading primary storage arrays like NetApp for backup from storage snapshots etc. The FAQ has also changed dramatically over time. So there's no point to continue this discussion, just ask your specific question in a new topic to avoid any confusion. Thanks!