This is just a quick update with something that I finally fixed two nights ago. If you happen to run VMWare ESX, *DO NOT* share a NIC between the console and Virtual Machines (VMs). This was how I had been running my system because I only had one NIC at the time. However, I had purchased a new dual port Intel gigabit NIC about a month ago, but I just hadn’t had the time to actually update the system to utilize it. Well, two nights ago, I set the original NIC to only the console session, and then put ports on the dual port NIC on a virtual switch used by all the virtual machines. Therefore, I theoretically get 200 Mbps to the virtual machines.
Holy crap, talk about an improvement. Transfers between the VMs and my NAS used to be dog slow, but now they are where they should be. I just need to get a gigabit switch with jumbo frames to use everything to fullest extent.