E1000 Vs VMXNET 3

This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 3 days, 23 hours ago by Evi Vanoost.

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- Fri, Dec 30 2022 at 3:09 am #1569325
  Paolo Maffezzoli
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  I have some VMs with E1000 NICs after P2V migration on VMware enviroment.
  I read the about switching to VMXNET3. IN my case , those servers have been running for a long time without any problems.
  Do you recommend changing the NICs anyway?
- Fri, Dec 30 2022 at 3:47 am #1569326
  Surender Kumar
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  Hi Paolo,
  Considering the fact that e1000 and e1000e are emulated interfaces as compared to vmxnet3 which is paravirtualized. Emulation is lot slower than paravirtualization so if you need high throughput (upto 10Gbps) on your VMs, the upgrade is definitely worth it. VMXNET3 is always a better choice as it is more stable, faster, gives you more features and causes less processor overhead.
  Before changing, you could note down your current MAC address and allocate the same on new adapter if you are using some kind of MAC-based filtering.
- Fri, Dec 30 2022 at 5:34 am #1569337
  Paolo Maffezzoli
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  Hi Surender, good suggestion about increased performance compared to E1000e, even if our VMs with E1000e are not production servers and speed is not a priority but for sure change NIC adapter is a worth.
- Fri, Dec 30 2022 at 5:36 am #1569338
  Paolo Maffezzoli
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  Before changing, you could note down your current MAC address and allocate the same on new adapter if you are using some kind of MAC-based filtering.
  Forgot to say that is a good hint!
- Mon, Jul 31 2023 at 7:43 am #1575295
  Corey Preman
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  What are the implications for a Domain Controller. I have a Sr Sys Admin that insists E1000E is better, but we have DHCP latency on this DC all the time. It is a Server 2019 6CPUs, 16GB RAM…. Please help?
  - Tue, Aug 1 2023 at 1:25 am #1575296
    Surender Kumar
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    Vmxnet3 is the way to go on newer systems without any second thoughts. The e1000/e1000e is a legacy network interface that should only be used for backward compatibility when vmxnet3 is not an option.
  - Thu, Sep 21 2023 at 12:44 pm #1576486
    Evi Vanoost
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    I would make sure the drivers are installed (you’re using an up-to-date VMWare Tools etc) and switch. You can leave the MAC address the same and simply swap out the controller type which Windows doesn’t seem to care too much about.
    As said previously, the E1000 is emulated, it is not physically present, so it isn’t “better” in any sense of the word, latency would be a byproduct of the emulation. It is there for systems that you want to virtualize but for whatever reason can’t or doesn’t yet have the VMWare drivers installed (eg. Windows 95, DOS, VMS or during installation of Windows…)
    This reply was modified 3 days, 23 hours ago by Evi Vanoost.
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