Pretty much all of the fiber ones, which is about all I use, are that
way. One good one that I've found works well with Linux is Amer.com's
C1000SX. It is available here:
http://www.amer.com/catalogue/ac1000sx.html
Another one is the Intel Pro/1000SX card, which is 64bit/66MHz. These
have been around for a long time, and I have used them in many a
GNU/Linux box. Just do a search on www.pricewatch.com, using the terms
"intel gigabit fiber", and I find them reasonably priced.
As for copper cards, those typically are integrated into the
motherboard nowadays, even on client box models. That's a question
that the motherboard manufacturer should answer--on which bus, and at
what bit/speed rate, is their integrated 10/100/1000 network
interface(s)? Tyan and MSI both are known to put the copper Gig-E
interface either on the PCI-32 bus (lower-end mobos) or, in Tyan's
case, also on the PCI-X bux (higher end, co$t$ more). If it's the
latter, you're in good shape. If it's the former, but you're running
your other Gig-E cards on the PCI-X bus, then other than IDE hard disk
contention (also on the PCI-32 bus, but not usually constant), you
probably will be fine. Of course, I'd be looking at SATA or SCSI
hardware raid on PCI-X if the budget allows for it.
--TP
Petre Scheie wrote:
Terrell Prudé Jr. wrote:
Robert Arkiletian wrote:
On 1/31/07, Robert Arkiletian
<robark gmail com> wrote:
On 1/31/07, Petre Scheie
<petre maltzen net> wrote:
Terrell Prudé Jr. wrote:
Robert Arkiletian wrote:
On 1/29/07, Joseph Bishay
<joseph bishay gmail com> wrote:
Hello,
I hope you are doing well.
Thank you all for the comprehensive reply!
Once I started reading your email, I realized that probably the
best
way to proceed was to work with
the idea of NIC Bonding or port
trunking. I have a surplus of Gigabit cards so I could put 3 in a
server (reading online I found that more than 3 wasn't going to
give
enough of an improvement due to
the PCI bus limitations -- can
anyone
validate this?) and then send all
3 of those to the switch. I
could
then bond 3 ports from that
switch to the next one (we'll probably
have 2 x48 gigabit switches for the whole building -- still
counting
the number of ports/computers
required) so as to deal with the
bandwidth. The cost of some of those fiber <-> copper converts
look
rather daunting.
I would VERY MUCH prefer to use only 1 server for the entire
building
-- I am still very much a novice
at this and the complexities of
setting up multiple servers or splitting into application &
/home with
LAPD sounds rather daunting.
If your still set on one server also have a look at this
http://k12ltsp.org/mediawiki/index.php/Technical:Subnetting
Instead of port trunking I think this would be a better idea.
Especially if you are going to have 2 48 port switches that
could be
on different gigabit linked
subnets.
Hmm...I hadn't thought of that particular application
myself--addressing
bandwidth bottlenecks--but you're
right, that sure would do it!
That
never even occurred to me...thanks!
--TP
I recall reading somewhere that three gigabit cards is probably the
max that the PCI bus
can handle. Can anyone confirm or deny
this?
No. A gigabit card is 1 Gibabit/s (that's 1 billion bits per second).
Each byte is 8 bits. So it maxs out at 125MB/s. A simple PCI bus can
handle 133MB/s max. So 1 gigabit ethernet card can saturate a PCI bus
Correction:
PCI 2.2 spec is 32 bits at 66Mhz which equals 266MB/s. So 2 gigabit
nics should be able to saturate it. The original PCI bus was 32bits at
33Mhz which is 133MB/s.
True, but if your PCI bus is 64-bits at 66MHz (i. e. PCI-X), then
you're
fine, as you then have 532MB/s. I've always been sure to buy 64-bit,
66MHz NIC's for this reason. Same with RAID cards; PCI-X whenever
possible.
What brand of 64-bit NIC are you buying for this purpose? Where do you
get them?
Petre
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