Recommended Fiber Channel HBA for ESXi 7?

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Scampicfx

New Member
May 6, 2017
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Dear Community,
I have used iSCSI for years now, but I would like to shift my setups to cost-efficient 8 Gb/s Fiber Channel.

I use these typical homelab solutions like FreeNAS / TrueNAS and ESXi (thanks to this forum I got know that FC will be only supported by TrueNAS Enterprise License).

I would like to ask what FC HBAs you can recommend to use in ESXi servers? For iSCSI, I loved the Intel X520-DA2 with SFP+.
I'm looking for a similar, reliable FC HBA card which also supports to boot via Fiber Channel (that's a must item!).
Are there any recommendations out there about FC HBA in ESXi 7?

I can see cheap offers about
QLogic QLE2562 2x 8 Gb/s
QLogic QLE2672 2x 16Gb/s

16 Gb/s is not required, but there is no much price difference. Most important point is reliability! :)

Any feedback is highly appreciated!

Thanks so far!

Cheers,
Chris
 

StevenDTX

Active Member
Aug 17, 2016
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173
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I have had way better luck with Emulex on ESXi. Have had random issues with Brocade and Qlogic.


If youre in the US, and you want "free", I have some 8Gb Emulex and Qlogic I can send you for the cost of shipping.
 

Scampicfx

New Member
May 6, 2017
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Hey Steven, thanks a lot for your generous offer! Unfortunately, I am not in the US!

Interesting to read that you are recommending Emulex because originally, I wanted to go with Brocade 300 FC switch and Qlogic adapter. Do you have some more examples or maybe some use cases why I should rather prefer Emulex? Which switch vendor would you recommend?

What exactly was bad about Brocade and QLogic?

Thanks so much!
 

jerryxlol

Member
Nov 27, 2016
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I would recommend emulex. I have had many POC where qlogic had issues with drivers or dead transceivers during operations. Now with Emulex 32g ( Dell branded) no problem so far.
 

StevenDTX

Active Member
Aug 17, 2016
493
173
43
Hey Steven, thanks a lot for your generous offer! Unfortunately, I am not in the US!

Interesting to read that you are recommending Emulex because originally, I wanted to go with Brocade 300 FC switch and Qlogic adapter. Do you have some more examples or maybe some use cases why I should rather prefer Emulex? Which switch vendor would you recommend?

What exactly was bad about Brocade and QLogic?

Thanks so much!
I would recommend emulex. I have had many POC where qlogic had issues with drivers or dead transceivers during operations. Now with Emulex 32g ( Dell branded) no problem so far.
This, exactly.

The Brocade switch is fine. But, over the years, I have found that you will have the best experience with Emulex HBAs in ESXi. You will never have a driver issue. They did drop support for some older cards though in 7.0
 

jerryxlol

Member
Nov 27, 2016
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At work, i have been using brocades 8g which migrated to cisco UCS FCOE FLEXPOD and now i have cisco n9300 nexuses with fc32G support. (Pretty nice when you dont want to have too much hardware in rack with paying support for it)

As mentioned by Steven, i would not definetly buy something without verifying that it has compatibility by vmware https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
AND its not eoled
AND of course have ability to download firmware without payed support :).
 

Scampicfx

New Member
May 6, 2017
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Gents, when looking for Optical Transceivers, which one should I choose? There are so many out there!
Would you suggest to buy LPE12002 or LPE16002 for vmware7 regarding compatbility and future-proof? :)
 

StevenDTX

Active Member
Aug 17, 2016
493
173
43
Gents, when looking for Optical Transceivers, which one should I choose? There are so many out there!
Would you suggest to buy LPE12002 or LPE16002 for vmware7 regarding compatbility and future-proof? :)

Thats a good card, and it comes with transceivers.

Personally, I wouldnt mess with anything slower than 16Gb if you are paying for them.
 
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