Typical speeds using iSCSI-SAS card?

Question

I have a TL2000 equipped with an iSCSI card and a single LTO-5 tape drive. The server I'm using for testing is a Dell R510 (Windows Server 2016 - Symantec Backup Exec) with a Dell H200E SAS HBA adapter. If I connect the tape drive to the server via SAS, I see typical speeds ranging from 100MB~135MB/second. Using the iSCSI card, speeds dropped to between 5MB~15MB/sec.I was using the latest firmware for the iSCSI card (v1.02.04) and tape library (e.30 3.20e) and LTO5 drive was F991.I found someone else having the same issue so I downgraded the firmware (per the suggested fix) of the tape drive to E6Q3 and the tape library to c.30 and now I'm seeing speeds of 50~55MB/sec when viewing the status page of the iSCSI card - which is about half of the theoretical speed of a gigabit connection.I have a few questions - what maximum speeds should I expect to see using iSCSI under ideal circumstances? Was the speed issues fixed in the latest tape drive firmware (G9N1)?

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello BSD2000,

When using an ISCSI bridge the speeds are going to be slower than if you was using direct connected SAS. The Bridge has a max speed of 1gb. Now the speeds that you are getting is about what I have seen most customers getting. I am doing some checking to see what the changes were of the latest firmware to see if that was addressed.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

PowerVault

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