MPIO performance drops after adding 4th NIC

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jsmithv
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:56 pm

Thu Nov 01, 2012 2:31 pm

I am trying to make sense of the results I am seeing when testing out MPIO with Starwind 6.0.4837.

Target Server:
Windows Server 2012
Device - CDP Image, Thin Provisioned, Write-Through Caching (4096MB Cache Size)
Storage - 6 x 1TB WD Red in RAID 10 on PERC 6e (attached to Dell MD1000)
NIC - Intel i340 Quad GB: 10.250.0.10, 10.250.1.10, 10.250.2.10, 10.250.3.10

Initiator Server:
Windows Server 2012
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
NIC: 2x Intel Dual GB: 10.250.0.11, 10.250.1.11, 10.250.2.11, 10.250.3.11

Server NICs are connected via 4 VLANs in an HP procurve switch - no flow control, no jumbo packets

Here is my issue. When I connect to the target with a single NIC, I see results I would expect (using ATTO Disk Benchmark):
Image

Next, I add another target IP to discovery, enable multipath, verify I see two paths, Round Robin policy and run the same benchmark and see the improvement I would expect by adding another path:
Image

Repeat with a third NIC:
Image

Again, results get better with each NIC... until I add a 4th. After adding the 4th path my results plummet:
Image

I've verified all the settings I can think of, but no matter what, when I add a 4th NIC to the mix, the results are half of what I'd expect with a single NIC. Hoping someone can help me understand why this happens?

Thanks,



EDIT: I apparently didnt check everything. for some reason, the 4th NIC on a quad port card is connecting at 100Mbps, so that definitely is the culprit. Well, typing it all out helped me find the issue in any case.
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anton (staff)
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 6:17 pm

What queue depth did you configure within ATTO? Did you try other tests (synthetic or real one, like f.e. copy HUGE file)? Is the issue re-producible with 'em?
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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jsmithv
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:56 pm

Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:35 pm

Sorry, in my edit at the end of the post I mentioned it was a NIC connecting at 100Mbps. That one was throwing everything off. Ended up being a bad cable in this instance. Thanks again for taking the time.

Jeff
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anton (staff)
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:49 pm

So... Can you publish final numbers with a 4 NIC properly working MPIO please?
jsmithv wrote:Sorry, in my edit at the end of the post I mentioned it was a NIC connecting at 100Mbps. That one was throwing everything off. Ended up being a bad cable in this instance. Thanks again for taking the time.

Jeff
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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