[Pc_Support] GbE Design -- WAS: ABS 8-Port GbE Switch

[Bryan J. Smith]

Damien McKenna <dmckenna at thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Thanks for that, Bryan.
> So would there be any point in spending $100 for a few PCI cards
> and a small switch to boost the interoperability of a small number
> of servers?

Depends.

If you are trying to do a separate, segmented "out-of-band"
connection for servers, that's one good idea.  Make sure the NICs
_and_ switches can handle 9,000 byte jumbo frames.

I don't know of too many $20 GbE cards that do Jumbo Frames though. 
You typically have to spend $50+ on a GbE NIC that has 16+KiB receive
and transmit SRAM caches.

Then add in $100 for a decent GbE switch that truly does Jumbo Frames
and has 1+MiB of buffer.  It doesn't have to do 802.1q VLAN, but it
_must_ allow 9,000 byte Jumbo Frames (they will typically support up
to 16KiB).

If you want to start doing in-band (same NIC for everything), I
really recommend you look at a good layer-3 switch.  But that's more
$$$, although under $1,000 these days even for GbE.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***