The precursor...
OK, I'll start this with a "Yes, I know that jumbo frames are not supported for Storevault products." Why it isn't supported is another topic of discussion (which I think should be answered...maybe even here).
The background...
Seeing as how I've read before a "yeah they're not supported, but you can do it", I stayed late last night to do some other server maintenance and to get jumbo frames going across my network....on my Cisco 3560, on my S500, and on my Exchange and Virtual servers using LUNs on the S500. To my surprise (and disappointment), my S500 would never allow me to set an MTU above 1500. I was on 7.0.3S8 (or something like that) so I updated it to the latest of 7.2.1S9. That version did not work either (neither through the CLI or FilerView). The exact error message was "Error: ifconfig: MTU size must be between 296 and 1500 for e0a". I also tried this on e0b and tried it when the interfaces were both "up" and "down". Still got the message. Next on the list was to find where I saw that it could be done. It turns out that it was right here on this forum, but that message has since been deleted (???). Through the joys of Google's caching system, I found it anyway. Just Google "cache:http://communities.netapp.com/message/2014?tstart=0" or search "storevault jumbo frames" and click on the Cached link for the first result (for some reason posting the actual cache link here didn't work). Sure enough, my eyes did not deceive me. My 'ole buddy Drew said that it was possible. However, that discussion also shows that a "davehughes" was having the same problem I'm having, yet he said he could accomplish it on his S500 but not his S550. Anyway, I had to can the whole project last night. Needless to say I was perturbed.
The question...
So, what's going on with it all? Since Drew said that it was possible in 7.2.1S8, did it get removed in 7.2.1S9 that I upgraded to last night? If so, why did it get removed? Was it causing problems or was it because it was not supported? If the latter, maybe we do need to start the discussion on why an iSCSI SAN product (from a company as reputable as NetApp) does not include support for jumbo frames. I don't think just because this is a SMB product that it should be tied that tight. I say put the option there and let the SMB decide whether they implement it or not (as I would agree that many SMB's would not have a clue what a Jumbo Frame is).
The disclaimer...
I want to end with saying that I'm a big supporter of StoreVault/NetApp and am loving my S500. However, I don't mind raising the hard questions when the situation calls for it. 🙂
Also, what happened to the Unofficial Storevault Forum that used to be around? I miss it.
