1 Gigabit NICs: Any point?

[Chsh]

I was just wondering what any others think of the following situation:

We have two machines here that must be connected to each other directly to improve performance (network time has been fingered as a bottleneck). One is a database server and another is a web server.

The problem is that we're looking at putting 1 Gigabit NICs in both machines. This is not only costly, but by my calculations, it isn't worth it. I think so along the following lines (please correct me if I'm wrong on any of the numbers):

The PCI bus allows 800 Megabits/sec data throughput.
Putting a 1 Gigabit NIC in the machines will mean we're only getting 800 Megabits/sec transfer rate, thus cutting the efficiency of the card, right?

Another thing I've heard is that some of these 1 Gigabit NICs won't allow another NIC in the machine with it (boot up problems, etc.).
I haven't been able to find much info on the web regarding them, and I wonder if they really are that much of a rarity.

FYI, I'm trying to link a Netfinity 8500R with a PowerEdge 1300.

Comments/Opinions are hoped for.

 

[CTR]

Try putting it in a 64-bit PCI slot. That's what you need. And an OS that can actually handle the throughput would help.

 

[spidey07]

Fine, I'll bite.

If you are sure it is really network thruput/capacity that is causing a problem (normally not, most likeley DB coding and I/O problems...you did say database didn't you?) then by all means a gigabit ethernet card will solve your problems. Either that or use the compaq or intel NIC teaming options to "bond" four 10/100 cards into one logical channel.

gig NICs are cheap, i'm not sure where you're getting the "not only costly" statement. I've also never heard of boxes having trouble with other network cards as well as the gig.

Run out and by you two Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapters. I'm not sure if there is a 64 bit/66 Mhz model or not but if there is a difference and your server has a 64/66 PCI bus then go for it. You'll be pleasantly suprised (If it wasn't code or I/O bound to start with). Also by one SC-SC fiber patch cord. You'll needs this to hook the two NICs together. I couldn't imagine it costing more than $2000 total.

hope this helps.

ps - To CTRs point, NT is notoriosly suck at handling sustained network thruput over 80 megabits/sec. Hope your DB server is running a higher performing OS, if you are demanding more than 100 megabits from it then by all means slap that puppy on a SUN.

 

[spidey07]

If you do do this try to put the NIC and SCSI/FC controller on a separate PCI bus. These are by far the heaviest hit cards and deserve to have all the bus bandwidth available.

cheers!

 

[dirtboy]

I was considering running Gigabit to all our servers. A Cisco rep once told me that unless I was running Netware it was a waste of time, because no other OS could sustain that sort of data transfer. Saved us a load of cash.

 

[bootay]

Actually, Win2k gets 800+mb/s on a gig NIC. NT 4 only scaled to somewhere in the 100-200mb/s, I think. It is one of, if not the, fastest platforms out there. Of course, you're often disk limited at this point...

 

[spidey07]

Dirtboy, Bootay:

Very interesting points on the OS. I've not heard of those performance numbers from 2000 but would really love to read some kind of test on it. Any links available? I'd really love to hear if they fixed the damn kernal problems from NT in win2000. But then again, any OS that pays that much attention to looking pretty couldn't have put much power elsewhere.

We've done our own tests inhouse with two PCI gig cards on a Sun 4500 and 10000 and smartbits traffic generator. Using 2 gig cards in a multilink config we were able to get 1.3 Gbs NFS thruput. Granted you are at the limits of I/O and disk speed but hopefully that is why you gang up the servers with RAM so I/O problems are minimized and you get very high cache hit ratio. Also a good storage infrastructure with fiber channel switches helps as well.

Seriously, I don't know much about 2000 and would love any "real" performance tests on it. I don't have the time to mess with it. Linkies please?

spidey

---come on CTR give us a disertation!!!!!!!!!!! Feed me.

 

[spidey07]

Notice a trend here boys?

Once again "the network" has more capacity than the hosts can generate. see...saw...see...saw.

 

[WoundedWallet]

A layman's question:

Can you really expect GB transfers with a giga card? From the trend we see on 10Ts, and 100Ts, wouldn't 800MB/s be a reasonable expectation?

If so there would be no real waste on the extra bandwidth.

BTW, I don't believe in "too much bandwidth". That's just like too much cash. It's only too much if you can't think of novel ways to use it