Gigabit Ethernet

[GreyWolfe]

Hey was just wondering...have the Anandtech guys ever considered gigabit ethernet for their internal network? I was reading the review of the NetGear cards and it mentioned that the server's ethernet connection (ie a base 100 card on a base100 network) could be one of the biggest bottlenecks for data retrieval and such...does your web/forum servers require that kind of data flow? Just interested.

Cheers,
GreyWolfe

 

[TunaBoo]

100 mbit = 8+ megs a second. For someplace serving webpages, this should be enough.

 

[thorin]

"I was reading the review of the NetGear cards and it mentioned that the server's ethernet connection (ie a base 100 card on a base100 network) could be one of the biggest bottlenecks for data retrieval and such...does your web/forum servers require that kind of data flow? Just interested."

Well a 100Mb connection would provide ~12.5MB/sec. A 1Gb connection would provide 125MB/sec. The only other devices with that much bandwidth are RAM, SCSI systems, and fibre connections 😛

A base100 (100Mb) connection should be able to serve ~1766 connections at a full 56.6Kb. A 1Gb connection would handle 10x that. (In a perfect world).

Currently the only 'real' application for gigabit ethernet is for file servers (serving other 10Mb or 100Mb connections). And data warehousing.

Thorin

 

[Windogg]

The cheapest gigabit cards I have seen are only $49 but it's the switches that get expensive. Another idea (good for companies with Cisco switches) is to use port aggregation. By bonding multiple ethernet adaptes you can get some pretty good speeds. It works pretty well.

Windogg

 

[astroview]

Well, I think gigabit would be nice for a backbone too.

And yes it is overkill for a home netowrk, but every anadtecher wouldn't mind running a gigbit network 😉

 

[RDMustang1]

Ok, admit it, who out there has a gigabit ethernet network set up in their house?