This document recommends the 54xx, 55xx, 62xx, 70xx, 80xx, 81xx for iSCSI optimization i.dell.com/.../equallogic-iscsi-optimization-powerconnect-switches.pdf Something that you may consider on the 28xx switch is Flow Control. Flow Control Flow Control feature in the PowerConnect 28xx series switches follow the 802.3x standard for full-duplex links. The flow control mechanism allows a receiving port to signal the port on the sending device telling it that transmission must temporarily be halted, to prevent buffer overflows. This is done by sending pause frames. Both devices at the ends of the link must have flow control enables either manually configured or through Auto-Negotiation. Default setting of flow control is off. The user can set the flow control to on, off or auto-negotiation state. Flow control can be configured on any port but will be operational only if the link is operating in full duplex. The PowerConnect 28xx series supports flow control on all ports including Link Aggregation Group (LAG) links. Hope this helps, Keep us updated if you can.
Hi, To start I did not purchase the following hardware or anything else. I was hired on acontract and I am trying to work with what I got. This is what I have done so far. x3 ESXi hosts (Dell R710s) x2 Switch <2824> 1x MD3200i SAN Everything I read tells me that these 2824 are not meant to handle iSCSI traffic in aStorage Network. I tried to make them usable by the following config changes. MTU on everything is 9000. (VMKernal Ports > vSwitchs > Physical (2824 have STP disabled, and JumboFrames enabled) > MD3200i storage ports have jumbo frames enabled at 9000 aswell) Everything I think is done to the best of my technical ability. I am getting avg 23mslatency on the virtual machine traffic between the ESXi host and the SAN. TheAVG Latency consists of a PEAK AVG of 80-90ms. Could this be because the switch(s) cannot handle large amounts of data buffering? I recommended better switches, but I get a kick back from corp. What is the minimumswitch you can use in a SAN iSCSI environment? 5xxx Series? or higher?  
Dell PowerConnect 2824 Switch and MD3200i SAN