VMWare vSphere 5.0 HW HBAs vs SW HBAs + Jumbo Frames

[marty]

I'm developing a VMWare vSphere 5.0 solution for my server infrastructure.

After giving up and contacting VMWare for some technical support, they have told me that my HP DL380 G7 hosts cannot run the MTU of 9000 bytes required for jumbo frames on vSphere 5.0 and I therefore I have two options for my solution:

1) Use VMWares SW HBAs and turn on jumbo frames for the full length of the storage fabric (I'm using dedicated SAN switches)

OR

2) Reap the benefits of HW HBAs but drop the frame MTU to 1500 across the storage links

 

Has anybody got any advice?

I read in a blog that 90% of all iSCSI in VMWare solutions is SW ad the first thing they asked me on the support call is why do I want to use HW HBAs?

Why have a dog and bark yourself? I could not believe VMware were asking me this! ...TCP Offload Engine...???

[marty]

I've found the answer I was looking for on vmadmin.co.uk here.

Thanks to everybody who had a read.

As if a HW HBA can't run MTU 9000 on vSphere 5.0 anyway, it's beggars belief if you ask me!