ESXi can be tuned to increase IO performance in several ways

 

ESXi can be tuned to increase IO performance in several ways. Here are some tips that may help:

 

Use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters: PVSCSI adapters can provide better performance than the traditional SCSI adapters. They are designed for high-performance storage environments and are optimized for virtual machines with heavy I/O workloads.

 

Use hardware acceleration: ESXi supports hardware acceleration for certain storage devices, such as Solid-State Drives (SSDs). This can improve I/O performance significantly. You can check if your hardware supports hardware acceleration by referring to the vendor documentation.

 

Enable Jumbo Frames: Jumbo Frames can increase network throughput and reduce network latency by allowing larger packets to be transmitted over the network. This can be particularly useful for storage traffic. You need to ensure that your network hardware and drivers support Jumbo Frames, and configure it accordingly.

 

Enable Write Caching: Write caching can improve performance by allowing writes to be buffered in memory and then written to disk later. You can enable write caching in the storage controller or disk settings, but be aware that there is a risk of data loss in case of a power failure or system crash.

 

Use Storage I/O Control (SIOC): SIOC can help prioritize I/O requests and prevent one virtual machine from monopolizing the storage resources. SIOC is particularly useful in environments with many virtual machines accessing the same storage.

 

Configure Storage Multipathing: Storage Multipathing can help improve performance and redundancy by providing multiple paths to the storage device. This allows for load balancing and failover capabilities. You need to ensure that your storage hardware and drivers support Storage Multipathing, and configure it accordingly.