topic Re: FAS and ESX : will i loose a lot using iSCSI instead of NFS ? in ONTAP Hardware

FAS and ESX : will i loose a lot using iSCSI instead of NFS ?

IMPI — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 20:35:37 GMT

Hi,

i just learn that when you virtualize a MS Exchange you must use a block protocol. Even if ESX present NFS from FAS as a block device, it is not supported.

We have been working with ESX, FAS and NFS for years with no problem, even with many exchange servers on it !!

I read many links from there and other forum and difficult to know what to do.

We now have a brand new strech metrocluster (2 fas8020 and 2 DS2246), and before having it under production i'm asking myself if i should use it with NFS (which is the prefered method for ESX/FAS) or with iSCSI (which is best practices for exchange).

Will i loose feature/performance ?

Any advice is welcome

Many thanks

Re: FAS and ESX : will i loose a lot using iSCSI instead of NFS ?

Jeff_Yao — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 01:02:46 GMT

i think as you're going to use exchange, you should use ms's recommendation - using block - iscsi.

using nfs might work well too. but it is not supported by ms. so if you have some issue on ESE, you're on your own - coz ms says "we dont support it".

there's tr4221 you can read from fieldportal.netapp.com website.

hopefully helps

thanks

Jeff

Re: FAS and ESX : will i loose a lot using iSCSI instead of NFS ?

IMPI — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:34:12 GMT

Sorry for my late reply and thnaks for your detail one !

I'll go ahead and read your doc