Dell recommends that you follow these guidelines.

Disable SMB Signing

When SMB Signing is enabled, Storage Spaces Direct uses RDMA for SMB (storage) traffic, which reduces network performance. Disable SMB Signing to improve performance.

For more information, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-ie/help/4458042/reduced-performance-after-smb-encryption-or-smb-signing-is-enabled.

Note: By default, SMB Signing is disabled. If SMB Signing is enabled in the environment through a Group Policy Object (GPO), you must disable it from the domain controller.

Update the hardware timeout for the Spaces port

For performance optimization and reliability, update the hardware timeout configuration for the Spaces port.

The following PowerShell command updates the configuration in the Windows registry and induces a restart of the node at the end of the registry update. Perform this update on all Storage Spaces Direct nodes immediately after initial deployment. Update one node at a time and wait until each node rejoins the cluster.

Set-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\spaceport \Parameters -Name HwTimeout -Value 0x00002710 -Verbose Restart-Computer -Force

Enable jumbo frames

Enabling jumbo frames specifically on the interfaces supporting the storage network might help improve the overall read/write performance of the Azure Stack HCI cluster. An end-to-end configuration of jumbo frames is required to take advantage of this technology. However, support for jumbo frame sizes varies among software, NIC, and switch vendors. The lowest value within the data path determines the maximum frame size that is used for that path.

For the storage network adapters in the host operating system, enable jumbo frames by running the Set-NetworkAdapterAdvancedProperty cmdlet.

Note: Network adapters from different vendors support different jumbo packet sizes. The configured value must be consistent across the host operating system and network switch configuration.

For information about configuring jumbo frames at the switch port level, see https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/sample-network-switch-configuration-files-2/.