Question : Benefits of using Broadcom Nic with iSCSI enabled

Hello,

We have hired an IT company to virtualise our servers. The have submitted a quote and am not sure about one thing i.e.

Dell offer two types of cards:
Broadcom® NetXtreme II 5709 Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet NIC, supporting TOE, x4 PCIe
Broadcom® NetXtreme II 5709 Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet NIC, supporting TOE, iSCSI, x4 PCIe

They have selected the second one i.e. with the support of iSCSI.  Please correct me if I am wrong.. I thought iSCSI is only to facilitate iSCSI storage on the host and because we are going to be using a dedicated SAN box to do all storage then we wouldn't need this?

Each server will have 2 x 146GB SAS Raid1 for storing VMWARE vSpherewith... will also have 8  x Broadcom with iSCSI

Just for my knowledge please can someone advise me on whether we need the iSCSI enabled Broadcom.. what will be the benefits or can we go with the first card?

Answer : Benefits of using Broadcom Nic with iSCSI enabled

Just like the others have said, Teaming is definitely what you want to do especially if you are utilizing vMotion and Storage vMotion.  Ok, just to set the record straight, iSCSI comes as a physical HBA or software based iSCSI.  The VMkernel comes with a software based iSCSI which allows you to use standard Network Cards.  The ESXi server is the host and your Dell SAN is the target, iSCSI will allow you to create multiple datastores and will be connecting at a fully duplexed 1000Mbps.