Dual Gb LAN for NAS

[mleonard]

Would 2x PCI-e Gigabit LAN ports be more beneficial in a storage server (NAS) than a single Gigabit LAN? This server would have either dual Xeon, or a single dual core processor, as I understand each 2x Gigabit LAN port would then be assigned a processor or core, making data transfer over the network faster, correct? My dual Xeon workstation, which I sometimes use for video editing, has 2 gigabits port. Would this dual Gb LAN rival fiber channel?

 

[kevnich2]

If your working directly off the server, fiber channel would be substanially faster, however, even with gigabit ethernet, your getting a maximum of 100mb/second. You'd be better off working directly off a machine that either has fiber channel RAID 5 array or doing nightly backups to your storage server. This is of course if your looking for the fastest possible speeds.

 

[cmetz]

mleonard, no.

 

[mleonard]

At $500+ per PCI fiber card seems a bit pricey. Why only 100mb/s when it's name implies 1000mb/s? Does 2 ports make any difference?

 

[kevnich2]

Sorry, I meant 100mBytes/sec, and that's the highest. My workstation at work has a direct gigabit NIC to our file server which also has gigabit and I usually pull down around 70-85mBytes/sec. Which for a LAN connection, it's not bad but still isn't as fast as working directly off of your computer. The reason I said fiber array is because having that attached directly is pretty much the fastest you could have IMO but I would recommend simply finding a USB 2.0 RAID5 enclosure, something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822102002

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Originally posted by: mleonard
Would 2x PCI-e Gigabit LAN ports be more beneficial in a storage server (NAS) than a single Gigabit LAN? This server would have either dual Xeon, or a single dual core processor, as I understand each 2x Gigabit LAN port would then be assigned a processor or core, making data transfer over the network faster, correct? My dual Xeon workstation, which I sometimes use for video editing, has 2 gigabits port. Would this dual Gb LAN rival fiber channel?

You would also need switches with the ability to bond (trunk, aggregate, whatever) the connections to actually have ~2Gbps of throughput instead of a pile of network weirdness.

 

[RebateMonger]

On a single-user network, you are more likely to be limited by the hard drive systems (either the server or the client) than by the gigabit network connection. Can both your disk systems read/write at more than 100MBytes per second?

 

[mleonard]

Originally posted by: mleonard
Why only 100mb/s when it's name implies 1000mb/s?

I found an answer to my question, bits and bytes arn't the same.... duh. I found a great List of Device Bandwiths page, the transfer comparison for Fiber Channel and Gigabit Ethernet:

Gigbit Ethernet: 1Gbit/s ---- 125 MB/s
Fiber Channel: 800 or 1600 or 3200 Mbit/s ---- 100 or 200 or 400 MB/s
10 Gigabit Ethernet: 10Gbit/s ---- 1.25 GB/s

 

[mleonard]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
On a single-user network, you are more likely to be limited by the hard drive systems (either the server or the client) than by the gigabit network connection. Can both your disk systems read/write at more than 100MBytes per second?

The workstation has (2) SATA-150 74GB WD Raptor 10,000RPM drives in RAID-0 array. The NAS will likely have (4) SATA-300 200GB Segate Barracuda 7200RPM drives in a RAID-5 array. I couldn't find any read/write specs on either manufactures websites, they only list seek time read/write.

 

[mleonard]

opps... double post

 

[spidey07]

A single gig nic is not a bottleneck.

Get into serious server hardware and it may become one, in that case you use teaming.

But we're talking million dollar storage systems that move data in cache before this becomes evident. You have to have a serious SAN to fill a gigE network card.

-edit-
maybe if you describe what you're trying to do we can help.

 

[mleonard]

Originally posted by: mleonard

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
On a single-user network, you are more likely to be limited by the hard drive systems (either the server or the client) than by the gigabit network connection. Can both your disk systems read/write at more than 100MBytes per second?

The workstation has (2) SATA-150 74GB WD Raptor 10,000RPM drives in RAID-0 array. The NAS will likely have (4) SATA-300 200GB Segate Barracuda 7200RPM drives in a RAID-5 array. I couldn't find any read/write specs on either manufactures websites, they only list seek time read/write.

Found a read/write Test with the single drive Raptor and similiar Barracuda, the mp3 comparison:
-- Raptor: Read = 56 MB/s Write = 20.72 MB/s
-- Barracuda: Read = 44.89 MB/s Write = 23.23
And with RAID-0 and RAID-5 I'm guessing the throughput will increase.

 

[Madwand1]

http://www.alacritech.com/html/teaming.html

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: mleonard

Originally posted by: mleonard

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
On a single-user network, you are more likely to be limited by the hard drive systems (either the server or the client) than by the gigabit network connection. Can both your disk systems read/write at more than 100MBytes per second?

The workstation has (2) SATA-150 74GB WD Raptor 10,000RPM drives in RAID-0 array. The NAS will likely have (4) SATA-300 200GB Segate Barracuda 7200RPM drives in a RAID-5 array. I couldn't find any read/write specs on either manufactures websites, they only list seek time read/write.

Found a read/write Test with the single drive Raptor and similiar Barracuda, the mp3 comparison:
-- Raptor: Read = 56 MB/s Write = 20.72 MB/s
-- Barracuda: Read = 44.89 MB/s Write = 23.23
And with RAID-0 and RAID-5 I'm guessing the throughput will increase.

Not really, if at peak it runs about 60MBps then we can guess that a RAID0 will maybe be about 90MBps. And since that's 900Mbps I would say that you are making mountains out of mole hills. 🙂

The one thing you can do is make sure all of your network hardware supports Jumbo frames.

 

[theorignalAMD Overclocker]

Originally posted by: spidey07
A single gig nic is not a bottleneck.

Get into serious server hardware and it may become one, in that case you use teaming.

But we're talking million dollar storage systems that move data in cache before this becomes evident. You have to have a serious SAN to fill a gigE network card.

-edit-
maybe if you describe what you're trying to do we can help.

What are you talking about? 125MB/sec is not hard to do. My SATA array is capable of a STR of 400MB/sec across all 3.5TB. Maybe you should rethink your response.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: theorignalamdoverclocker
My SATA array is capable of a STR of 400MB/sec across all 3.5TB. Maybe you should rethink your response.

Wow. I'd like to have one of those. What controller card and what SATA drives are you using? And how much does the controller cost?

 

[mleonard]

Originally posted by: spidey07
-edit-
maybe if you describe what you're trying to do we can help.

Trying to make a NAS as fast as possible over a network without spending for fiber or teaming. Primarily for a 3D/Video Workstation, and secondarily for HD video streaming to less speedy 1Gb LAN computers.

 

[mleonard]

Originally posted by: InlineFiveNot really, if at peak it runs about 60MBps then we can guess that a RAID0 will maybe be about 90MBps. And since that's 900Mbps I would say that you are making mountains out of mole hills.

I just ran HD Tach on my RAID-0 74GB Western Digital Raptors, Results.. 110MB/s with bursts at 122MB/s and 0% CPU utilization!! Not too shabby. True, those are the workstation drives and not the NAS.