I have two LUNs on a ReadyNAS 102 Firmware 6.2.5. One LUN is connecting to Windows 8.1 iSCSI Initiator and the other to Windows 2008 R2 iSCSI initiator
The NAS unit and the two computers are connected by a 5-port Netgear Gig switch.
I have CHAP turned off. ifconfig on the NAS shows no packet errors.
These connections keep dying after a couple 100 Mb of data transfer. When the issue occurs, NAS dmesg shows:
iSCSI Login timeout on Network Portal 192.168.44.250:3260
and then when I try to re-establish the connection via Windows initiator....
tx_data returned -104, expecting 292. iSCSI Login negotiation failed. sock_ops->getname() failed. tx_data returned less than expected
I did a lot of testing on this today. I did as you asked. I also went so far as to delete both LUNs and LUN groups (each LUN was in their own group). I recreated just one and had only the 2008 R2 server attaching to it. This still did not function well.
Overall, I believe the fault to be the 2008 R2 iSCSI initiator or the NIC drivers that are not able to communicate properly.
The R2 and 8.1 boxes are both the same model using the same Realtek GBE NIC.
My Windows 8.1 iSCSI initiatiator does not seem to have the issue the R2 one has. I am able to reconnect, disconnect, reconnect. I am able to format the iSCSI disk, perform some transfers, and re-format, and repeat these processes. The R2 box would die on subsequent transfers or format, or even refreshing the connection.
On the R2 server, I tried all sorts of variations to improve stability. Very infrequently did I get a stable connection and data transfer. When I did, it usually was only on a freshly created LUN and the first-time connection. Successive connections or attempts to format the iSCSI disk met with the timeout error.
I ensured iSCSI firewall rules were enabled, then later disabled Windows firewall altogether.
Also, I removed the Hyper-V role I had installed earlier yesterday to eliminate virtual stack issues. I also updated the Realtek GBE NIC driver from the default Dell driver to the one from the manufacturer site. It was still a version behind the Windows 8.1 driver. I tried turning off all Offload options in the NIC settings. I tried iSCSI with and without CRC checksumming options and disabled CHAP altogether. I tried LUNs of 1000 GB and 10 GB to see if it was a block size or LUN size issue. I tried direct local disk to iSCSI disk copies and then across-network transfers. I just never got the stability I see on the 8.1 box.
So I guess I'll just create a SMB share for R2 and keep using iSCSI for the 8.1
