I'm setting up an ESXi 4 server to connect to an NFS datastore. I'd like to bond two of the NICs together and use jumbo frames for the NFS connection on a private (non-management) network. I setup a new switch with the 2 NICs and am able to connect to the NFS share over it, but could use some guidance on getting jumbo frames and link aggregation/bonding/teaming working.
Nfs – Setup link aggregation and jumbo frames on VMware ESXi 4
bondingjumboframesnfsvmware-esxi
Best Answer
First off, make sure you can support jumbo frames from end to end of the stack. This means the nics in your storage to the switching and of course the hosts nics. If they aren't all set to jumbo frames or can't all do jumbo frames there is no point in trying - you'll be worse off.
On ESXi the process to setup jumbo frames requires using the command line - there is no method in the vSphere client. However you achieve that (Unsupported mode, vMA, rCLI, etc) you have to be able to use the command line. If you're still good, I'll refer you to an excellent blog post here by Chad Sacak. It is iSCSI centric but has the necessary commands to setup all the jumbo frame esx(i) bits.
Good Luck!