ESXi 4.1 on Tyan S2912 + 2347HE very slow

[elec999]

Full Specs

Opteron 2347HE (1.9ghz)x2
4x1GB Kingston DDR2 667 ECC Reg
ESXi 4.1 on USB Drives
Tyan S2912 Rev E
Two Broadcom 5709 for iSCSI 4 paths (2 active, 1 active/1 io) -using software iscsi
Two onboard gigabit nics for management/vmnetwork
Dell MD3000i SAN + iSCSI to VMWre 5x640GB 15k drives in Raid5

The ESXi 4.1 is set to jumbo frames, accross all the sWitches. The ESXi is very slow, installing a OS took forever like 2 hours for Windows 7 test. Copying files to guest vm about 512k/sec.

Could this be caused by the onboard nvidia network cards?


Update 1 : Tried with just Broadcom controllers, no onboard and still slow.

 

[Vader]

Did you run any performance diagnostics? What are the IO and latency stats in vCenter..etc?

 

[elec999]

Did you run any performance diagnostics? What are the IO and latency stats in vCenter..etc?

They seem fine. Just installing Windows/Any Linux/ Using os running very slow. I have three other servers, all install Windows of PXE <SUB 10 minutes. This server even loading ESXi is slow.

 

[SimonD]

Decent USB keys or cheap things?

I would see what happens if you disable jumbo frames across the board and see if that works for you, I have experienced in the past issues where it was enabled but due to a certain piece of hardware it wasn't working as expected.

I would look at running some Iometer tests across the link to the SAN.

 

[Vader]

I take it you are installing from ISO off of another data store?

If you run I/O meter from another guest to the same datastore what are your stats?

What do your other stats look like..CPU/memory..etc?

 

[elec999]

I take it you are installing from ISO off of another data store?

If you run I/O meter from another guest to the same datastore what are your stats?

What do your other stats look like..CPU/memory..etc?

I have tried everything. There is no ISO, installs are off WDS or VIA DVD. I have tried everything disabling onboard network, jumbo frames off.

The io look perfect. I have been told could be CPUs?

 

[SimonD]

I have tried everything. There is no ISO, installs are off WDS or VIA DVD. I have tried everything disabling onboard network, jumbo frames off.

The io look perfect. I have been told could be CPUs?

I would honestly look at running iometer from a running machine that's stored on the SAN to see what kind of IOPS you're getting because being honest if people can (and do) run ESXi on the HP MicroServer with a dual 1.3ghz cpu I couldn't see the Opties being too much of an issue.

Running the Iometer test will give you an idea of what the performance is like from a running server. Have a look at the VMware forums for some Iometer scripts or just pop over to my site and use the one there (it's from the VMware Performance Testing thread anyway).