Network performance when introducing powerconnect 6224

HI, I wanted to see if anyone has an idea on what may be going on.

I manage a small network, and I have a edge router that Verizion manages, and it used wire directlly into my untrusted port on my Juniper firewall.  I decided that I would like to put an IDS monitor on the link between my external router, and the firewall.  I had an older 6224 sittingaround, so I used port 1&2 on that switch to wire into my router and firewall.  Both ports are on VLAN 1(untagged).  I setup another port for my SNORT server to sit on promiscious mode.  I setup DELL mirroring from port 1&2 over to my snort port.  I have done all this and the basic functionality is working.  I'm getting a number of complains about the performance of the network has diminished.  I'm trying to debug if there is something set in the switch that is causing this problem.  I web'ed into the management port on the switch to see if I could see anything.  I looked at the 2 ports in question, and both seem to be set to max speed, which I assume wil lbe 100MBs.  Since we only have a DS3, that should be fine.  Does Mirroring introduce a lot of delay?

The one thing I do see is that the ports on the switch are more of an amber color, versus a green.  The snort port is green.  I'm not sure if that is showing me something?

I'm not really a networking guy, so I'm a little over my head with this.

I see a few other things within the management setup that seems to provide a number of different things to look at.  I"m a little over my head with what type of things to look at for possible culprits for such a simple communication from one port to another.

Any ideas would be welcome.