Considering going Gigabit!

[StraightPipe]

So I've got a 100mb network setup in myu house w/ 4 pc's 1 mac, and a PS2. it's all connected to DSL using a linksys router, and a gigabit switch. everything works great, but i really want to improve transfer speeds between my 2 pc's. i recently added RAID0 so it gets transfer speeds up to 85MB/s x 8 = 680mb/s. my older system is still regular IDE, and gets transfers up to 55MB/s x 8 = 440mb/s. (considering upgrading to SCSI on that one).

my new system has onboard gigabit (dell mobo).

I've been looking at switches and nic's, and have found this trendware 1000 switch for $70 after rebate(plus $5 for s&h)

also i found several nic's ranging from $28+5 for EDImax, or $43+5 for Intel all at newegg

Questions:
can I just connect the 2 via crossover cables, or do i need to fork out $75 for a switch too (i'm perfectly happy with 100mb's on the other pc's)

do i need cat6 cables? or if i stick with cat5 will that bottleneck me? I'd like the network to be fast enough that the RAID drive will be the bottleneck (planning ahead to get a faster drive system in the old box) so i want to be able to get 680mb/s.

i realize to do this i will need a minimum of one gigabit nic (for my old rig), and a 100mb nic for my new pc. that way i could connect the to each other using crossover cable, and onto my existing network using 100mb.

my concerns ar that have both computers on both netowrks if i request a file transfer how will the systems know to send it on the gigabit LAN, and not the 100? they need to be on the 100netowrk so i can get them on the net. (ICS through one of these boxes isnt feasable since the old box is used for serious downloading, and i dont want to have to realay through either.

does it make a difference which NIC's i pick? please tell me i dont need the switch /wallet begging for mercy

 

[spidey07]

crossover cable won't work for gigabit.

But lots of gigabit nics will work just fine with a straigt-thru cable.

I'm partial to intel gigabit nics.

Use a cat5e or cat6 cable.

your in gigabit business.

 

[StraightPipe]

so with straight cable i can go nic to nic?

do you know how it will affect my current LAN? say i want to copy a file from one comp to the other, does it automattically get the fastest connection and use that lan? or would it depend on how i mapped the network drive?

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Note that the switch you're looking at has ONE gigabit port, the others are all 10/100.

 

[p0lar]

StraightPipe - Use a StraightCable, also known as an 'interconnect' cable. Unlike 100BaseT, 1000BaseT does NOT transmit/receive on separate pair! It transmits and receives simultaneously on EACH pair across all four pair. It's part of the standard - save your $$.

Don't forget, you're NOT going to get a full 1000MBit/s from a gigabit interface, even if it's paired straight to another. 1000BaseT has FAR more crosstalk to worry about than 100BaseT so it's not nearly as efficient.

Good luck, have fun, enjoy the speed, and be sure to use Cat5e or Cat6 cable.

 

[spidey07]

1000 Base-T does indeed move bits at 1000 gigabit/sec. Crosstalk is a function of the cable and if the cable meets cat5e spec (250 Mhz) then there's nothing to worry about.

Its the supporting hardware/software that can't keep up (processor, bus, disk, memory, etc).

In the lab we have even been able to fill a 10 Gigabit link (using smartbits traffic generators, not some mainstream OS). We are now of the age where the network is truly surpassing the hosts attached to it.

 

[cmetz]

StraightPipe, most 1000BaseT devices are auto-crossover. It's highly likely that a straight-through cable with all pins properly connected will just work. If you do need a switch, 4-port 10/100/1000 SOHO switches can be had for circa $90 and dropping. You need a cable system that performs within the cat5e specs; many older well-done cat5 setups will qualify, but for any new work cat5 is the minimum. cat6 is not a bad idea for new installations if the cost difference is not high, but I would certainly not rip out cat5 to put in cat6 unless you are sure the cat5 is not working with gigabit today.

As a network topology issue, I would strongly urge you to get a 4/5 port SOHO 10/100/1000 switch, connect both PCs to the switch, and then connect the switch to your existing 10/100 devices such as a SOHO router. This will give you one Ethernet, and one IP subnet - a whole bunch of problems just go away if you do that. Yes, it's an extra expense, but not a huge one, and you'll otherwise just spend it in man-time.

My favorite NICs are those based on the Broadcom chip - the Netgear GA302T is a $35ish board based on that chip. The Intel Pro/1000MT is a $42ish board that is also a solid performer. Avoid boards based on the National Semiconductor chipset.

p0lar, a gigE interface is 1000Mb/s, +/- 10%. Crosstalk and other signal quality issues manifest themselves as errors, but do not affect the bit rate of the interface. There is significant signal processing and error correction in the gigE interface to help compensate for media problems.

spidey07, cat5e is 100MHz. cat6 is 250MHz.

 

[p0lar]

1) Category 5 is 100MHz, Category 5e is 100MHz, Category 6 is 250 MHz, Category 7 is 600 MHz.

2) 2 bits/symbol * 125 MSymbols/Second * 4 pair = 1Gbps - it is not possible, at the physical layer, to move more than 1Gbps, especially not another 100Mbit/s (i.e. +10%). Please obey the posted IEEE speed limits. (=

3) The reason the devices are "auto-crossover" is because of the way the data moves across each pair. As I stated, in 100BaseT, it uses one pair to send and the other to receive. With 1000BaseT, data is sent and received on EACH pair simultaneously, across all four pair. As long as the pair are aligned correctly (i.e. interconnect cable) - the cable will 'crossconnect' devices.

4) In practicality, I have *never* seen gigabit/s speeds from any machine, even with huge switching buffers. BUT, for the sake of the discussion at hand, I will perform a test between two Dell 2650 servers. Each has two on-board 1000BaseT interfaces with Intel chipsets. Both have dual 2.4GHz Xeons (400MHz FSB), while one has 2GB of RAM and the other has 4GB. I will perform a test with an FTP server and client on each, both directions for both servers, with both an 'interconnect' cable and using a Cisco Catalyst 6506 with a MSFC2a switching card and a 16 port Gbit/s blade. I won't do any layer3 routing, but that may be an interesting test for later as well. Each system is currently running a distribution of linux based on the 2.4.20 kernel. To eliminate the possibility of error, we'll also run them across a Cisco Catalyst 6513 (with the same MSFC2a switching engines and 16 port Gbit/s blades) and a Dell PowerConnect 5012. I'll try Category 5 enhanced as well as Category 6 cable, both pieces at a minimum of 6 feet. (I may try some Category 5 cable (non-enhanced) just for the sake of discussion (*IF* I can find some.. /. Any predictions?

FWIW, I still can't recommend the (cheap) switch for his solution at this point in time. All he needs to do is put his two GBit/s interfaced nodes on a different network (i.e. 100Mbit/s LAN is 172.16.1.0/25, and Gigabit LAN could be 172.16.1.128/30). With that solution, traffic stays in the correct physical and logical layers AND solves his dilemna. The only point at which he may benefit is if multiple clients are pulling data from the server (a specification not stated) - a switch is recommended at that point, with a slightly different network topology than what was previously suggested. (flatten the network out)

- p0lar

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I still haven't seen any cheap solution to a gigabit switch that has more than one gigabit port.

Obviously, the switch that was mentioned in this thread is for a server setup where there's only one gigabit circuit feeding multiple 10/100 clients. Does anyone know of an inexpensive gigabit switch with multiple high speed ports?

 

[UThomas]

Linksys makes a 5 and 8 port gigabit switch for about $120 and $160 respectively. Check here:

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=35&scid=42&prid=528

 

[cmetz]

gunrunnerjohn, I bought a Hawking HGS-4T for $80 shipped from Amazon a while back, it's gone up slightly in price but still should be less than $100. Four 10/100/100 ports. Other players should have similar products for similar prices now.

 

[StraightPipe]

thanks for the help everybody.

looks like i'm going to just get one more 1000 NIC, and hookum up with 6" of straight cat5e(they are like 4 feet apart)

should i spend the $ to get intel, or is the EDImax ok? i couldn't find the chipset on their website.

only thing i'm still not sure about is how my systems will handle the 2 PC's both being members of the same 2 networks.
the 100 net will still have several PC's and my internet connection (DSL @ 1400-1700/600-700), and then the to fast movers dircetly connected with 1000.
what will happen if i copy files from one to the other? how does the system determine which network to pull across?

I'm using winXP on one box, and win98se on the other, all service packs...

 

[p0lar]

It's hard not to recommend Intel, so I won't comment on which card I personally think you should get because I'm not familiar with EDImax.

As far as your PCs being members of the same 2 networks, that's almost a non-issue. To force transfer down one interface or the other, just specify it on the command line with the IP (or via name if you're willing to hack on your hosts file). Don't specify a default route for the two nodes with 1000BaseT interfaces (or if you do, weight it with a higher metric, although I'm not sure why you'd want to do that with your setup) and your default traffic should be pushed through your 100 Mbit/s interfaces.

I'm not a Windows expert so I'm not sure if there is a better solution or not. I'd remain open to suggestions if I were you. (=

Good luck!

 

[StraightPipe]

that was confusing, i want my default trafic to go over the 1000 because it's faster. thats why i'm setting it up. the only reason i'm staying on the 100 is because my internet connection is being shared on that line.

the reason i'm considering the el cheapo card is just my experience with 100baseT cards. i've always bought the $7 cards and had no problems. but if it's going to make a difference on speed than i'll gladdly spend the extra $20 for the intel card. but my transfer speed is probly going to max out around 680mb/s (85MB/s) with the current RAID 0 setup (i'll eventially be upgrading the drives in the other box to SATA or SCSI and hoping to get similar speeds). i figure that is so much lower than 1000 i'd be ok with the cheap card. anybody have a card thats not intel? how good are your speeds?

 

[p0lar]

You're going to keep both.

1) Set your default route on your 100Mbit/s interface because your Internet is on that segment. Don't worry about it being faster or slower, it'll still eclipse the speed of your broadband.

2) For your FILE TRANSFERS, you want to make sure that they occur (between your two gigabit-enabled servers) on the gigabit links, so you're going to specify one server or the other with a different IP address, but NOT the IP that is on your LAN segment!

Here's how it could work:

Your LAN:
192.168.0.0 (network)
192.168.0.1 (default route)
192.168.0.1 (DNS proxy)
192.168.0.255 (broadcast)
255.255.255.0 (netmask)
/24 (prefix)

Your Gigabit LAN:
192.168.10.0 (network)
192.168.10.1 (machine #1)
192.168.10.2 (machine #2)
192.168.10.3 (broadcast)
255.255.255.252 (Netmask)
/30 (prefix)

When you want to transfer a file at gigabit speeds, you need to specify the machine as 192.168.1.2 (from machine #1) or 192.168.1.1 (from machine #2) unless you hack on your <system_directory>\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (I THINK - I'm NOT a windows-type-guy) file. Make an entry for whatever you want Machine #1 and Machine #2 to be, in there and then you can specify that entry in the command line, or wherever (browser, etc). (i.e. \\<entry_name\C$ ).

Does that help?

 

[StraightPipe]

it helps, but since i am a windows guy i dont use the command line often, I usually just drag and drop.

maybe i should start a new thread.

thanks for the input!