It's best if you have your storage network completely separated from your other network.
Then normal traffic won't cause delays for storage IO.
Also if your storage network is all Gigabit (with support for Juboframes on all network ports) you could use Jumbo frames there enhancing data throughput. (that can't be mixed nicely with normal ethernet frames).
Any IP address rand would do there as long as it doesn't have the same address on your regular network.
