Today I was talking about virtualization storage platforms and my statement was “Customers perceive ESX storage performance as Fibre Channel as tier 1, iSCSI as tier 2, and NAS/NFS as tier 3.” I was shocked when I was told that VMware had tested botha and found that NAS/NFS as faster than iSCSI.

This conversation came up when questioned why more customers are not using NAS/NFS for virtualization. The answer seemed logical. iSCSI is a block level access platform, while NAS/NFS was file level and bogged down with protocol overhead. The response surprised me. So I checked out the VMware forums and found:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=423469񧘭

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=419633񦜱

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=423871񧞿

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=51698&start=0&tstart=0

It seems to me that even the community is divided. It’s hard to determine whether iSCSI’s “speed” is real or perceived. Has anyone tested iSCSI vs NAS/NFS?

I’d love to hear about it!