Equallogic Performance Issues

I've spent a week trying to troubleshoot an issue with a new Equallogic PS4100X. A case has been opened with Dell a week ago. After multiple escalations it has gotten absolutely nowhere. I wanted to see if anyone would be able to add some insight.

IOMeter test result:

SERVER TYPE: Windows 2008 R2

HOST TYPE: DL380 G7, 72GB RAM; 2x XEON E5649 2.53 GHz 6-Core

SAN Type: Equallogic PS4100X / Disks: 600GB 10k SAS / RAID LEVEL: Raid50 / 22 Disks / iSCSI

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TEST NAME--Av. Resp. Time ms--Av. IOs/sek---Av. MB/sek----

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Max Throughput-100%Read.......______18___..........___3217__........___101____

RealLife-60%Rand-65%Read..._____13___.........._____3438__........_____27____

Max Throughput-50%Read.........______19___..........____3199__........___100____

Random-8k-70%Read................_____13___.........._____3463__........_____27____

DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM:

The PS4100X has a system bottleneck that limits throughput to 100MB/s. When a single host is connected with a single path, eth0 and eth1 on the PS4100x can max out at 1Gbit/s. When there are multiple hosts or multiple paths connected (tested 2 - 8 concurrent paths, 2-6 host nics), the throughput of eth0 and eth1 drop to half of the speed (500Mbit/s). The combined throughput of both ethernet adapters can never exceed 1Gbit/s. Unit has been upgraded to v5.2.1 (latest) firmware.

SEE TEST RESULTS HERE:

1. Shows eth1 being maxed out in single path, then the connection switches to multipath

2. Shows eth0 being maxed out in single path, then the connection switches to multipath

3. Shows two concurrent tests from two separate test hosts

RULLING OUT NETWORK ISSUES:

I'm able to replicate the above problem in the following configurations:

Test host connected to PS4100X via Cisco 6509

Test host connected to PS4100X directly via cross over cable (two active iscsi paths setup manually)

Test host connected to PS4100X via dedicated unmanaged netgear switch

I can further prove that the Cisco 6509 is functioning properly because I'm able to show speeds of 180MB/s+ speeds to the production PS6000XV and the production PS4000E.

RULLING OUT HOST ISSUES:

Tested from a host running Windows 2008 R2 and another host running Windows 2003. Both test hosts encounter the issue described above. Both hosts show speeds of 180MB/s+ when running tests against the two Equallogics in production.

DEALING WITH DELL-EQUALLOGIC SUPPORT HELL:

The analyst I'm currently dealing with says the PS4100x is working as expected. He refuses to do any further troubleshooting because some of the blades on the Cisco 6509 have QOS and VOIP. The blade the SAN and test hosts are connected to have no QOS or VOIP configured.