ESXi n00b having issues....

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white-hot

Member
Jan 8, 2013
43
15
8
Hey all

In preparation for setting up a ESXi box to house a file server (WHS or 2012) and a WMC/Ceton VM, I have been playing with an installation and learning as I go. I have run in to a couple roadblocks that I seem to be unable to get past with my limited experience and searching. First the system it is running on is a SM X8SIA-F with a L3426 and 16GB RAM with a single HD for testing.

First I have been unable to get any passthrough working at all. I tried both NICS (both are 82574 onboard) to no avail. All shows fine in vSphere with a green dot, but when I then create a VM, assign that NIC to it and then load an OS it never sees it. Nothing in the device manager nor will it allow me to load a driver (install says no such adapter found). I was hoping to assign one NIC to the WMC VM to allow all the traffic that the tuner will require but no go. I plan to get another 4 ports minimum when the system all comes together but figure it might be nice to get this working first :)

Second, I am having some serious network issues. Originally I had both NICs teamed in the default vSwitch serving both the VMKernel and the VMs. To test this I tried to transfer a large video file from my current server to the WMC VM. When doing a 5GB file it runs at 70-75MBs for about 20% of the file then hits the wall and gets down to 20-25MBs for the rest of the file. From the server to a regular PC on the network it stays in the 70MBs range at all times. I tried a couple changes, like separating the 2 NICs in to 2 vSwitches with one handling the VMs and the other the VMKernel, and I changed drivers on the WMC VM from e1000 to VMXNET, but no help.

Anyway, any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Todd
 

sotech

Member
Jul 13, 2011
305
1
18
Australia
To clarify re: the passthrough issues, since you didn't explicitly mention this - are you marking the NICs for passthrough? Configuration -> Advanced settings -> edit, add the NIC and reboot in case you're not doing that step, then add the NIC as a PCI device.

So for files of ~1GB or less it transfers at ~70MB/s for the entire file?
 

white-hot

Member
Jan 8, 2013
43
15
8
Sorry about that. I am completing the passthrough process including the reboot, after which the NIC shows with the green dot as being passed through. I then add the NIC to the VM during creation as a PCI device. I then install OS as normal but it never finds the NIC, even as an unknown device. Very confused.

As for file size, that doesn't seem to be an issue. Later I tried several smaller files, a 1GB file and a 1.7GB file. Each time the gauge would begin at 70+ and then abruptly drop to ~20, and in both cases it happened after about .75GB has been transferred. I checked the performance tab and the graph clearly shows the same thing. Today I am going to install an OS directly on the hardware to rule out an issue with the NIC's themselves. I have read a few places about networks being slow for various reasons, but I would have figured the default setup with 2 NICs would do better than this. Just to cover all bases I changed cables (all Cat6) and moved the ports in the switch (Netgear GS116) around, all with no effect, so I am left to conclude that it is VM related.