Hot? Gigabit SMC switch, model SMC8504T, $69 SHIPPED!(Updated!!)

[Emulex]

my freebsd box on 100mbps through a 7500 cisco pulls 8900k/sec downloads across the office using flashfxp . what exactly are you guys transferring that needs more than that lol. lotsa pron?

 

[vfrjim]

Nope, never tested fibre, but just assuming that from what I read that it is definitely less then fibre. I am guessing my bottleneck would be the harddrives, but not really sure, would like to see what others get in reference to my numbers. BTW, one computer is a P4 2.53 and the other is a 2400xp with a 200 FSB (unlocked).

No, I do not have a pr0n collection, I record HDTV transport streams (9 gigs /hr) and usually takes too long IMO to transfer, now a 1 hour recording takes about 2 1/2 minutes to transfer opposed to about 10 minutes.

Jim

 

[erickotz]

1000B-CX (Copper Gigabit) and 1000B-SX (One fiber Gigabit) both have the same max speed - 1000mbits/second. Technically, fiber is even a tad slower due to the time it takes to convert to/from light, but that's splitting hairs.
I personally have gotten up to 630 mbits/second on my copper gigabit system. The CPU in one of the two machines was maxed out at that point.
I hope these have no fan-that would make my room all but silent. I ordered one to replace my linksys 8 port gigabit and D-Link 16 port 10/100.

 

[nekote]

Deal is EVEN BETTER, now (very? temporary?) ???

$69 w/S&H !!!! ("free" S&H to me, when I just checked!)

SMC TigerCard 1000 32-bit Gigabit Ethernet PCI Adapter, Retail
$15.99 ea. w/S&H !!!! (S&H $6.99 per $9 NIC, to me!)


Care to update the Deal's title???


PS: FWIW: STR = Sustained Transfer Rate

 

[cmetz]

This whole thread has an impressive amount of misinformation about gigabit. For lurkers who want to learn more about gigabit Ethernet technology, do some Google searching and/or reading in the Networking forum. Don't take what you're reading in this thread about gigabit Ethernet as factual.

The item and price - the parts most germane to this forum - that's what to focus on here. It is a great deal for those looking to get into SOHO gigabit. (or for small to medium sized businesses who just need a few ports to connect servers or something)

 

[Tiembo]

Originally posted by: docinthebox

Originally posted by: dman
I would think you'd reach the harddrive maximum before you'd get benefit from gigabit UNLESS you have RAID or something or maybe one of the 10K IDE or 15K SCSI Drives.

not according to storagereview... Maxtor DM9 has STR of 55MB/sec, WD1200JB has 49MB/sec.

Fast ethernet's bandwidth is 100Mbps or 12.5MB/sec. So practically, you get maybe 10MB/sec. So you still have ways to go with gigabit ethernet until you hit the STR of your IDE drive.

It's not just simply dividing by 8. You have to account for the IP header data, along with other overheads. Realistically, the best I've seen on fast ethernet is about 10 MB/s sustained - which is more than enough to stream a DVD over the network.

The figures I've seen with tests online show anywhere from 30-45 MB/s sustained, depending on chipset. Defintiely getting very close having network drives peform as if they were local (which is what I'm looking forward to!). But yeah, like cmetz said, do some reading on networking and gigabit ethernet.

 

[syadnom]

first of all, use a RAM drive on both computers so that the storage medium is not the barried. I have set up a 1 GB RAMdrive on two computers(this was months ago agrueing the same fact as here so i'll use it 🙂 )

ethernet has an overhead in the range of 10-15%, depending on the switching hardware and efficiency of the NICs being used. With two Intel Gigabit cards I can transfer an ISO image of Suse8 accross the network @ 102MB/second sustained. the image is 785MB and transfers in just under 8 seconds. This is over Cu wire , not fiber.

next.

Cu wire can transfer gigabit just as well as fiber up to 80-100meters. the farther the cable run, the more crosstalk and weaker attenuation on the Cu wires where fiber has VERY LITTLE crosstalk and that is typically at strand ends where the optical connector leaks light at the point of connection. Fiber also has much better attenuation esspecially if the strands/cable is not bent and bent fiber causes more lost light.
Cu wire uses 8 wires/4 pairs to transmit 250Mb/s along each pair for a true gigabit connection.
Fiber uses two strands(typically), one tx, one rx(send/recieve, whatever you may want to call it.) fiber is really not "gigabit" but the light source is, if the light source were enhanced, fiber could handle much more. I would guess that single mode fiber could handle 100-200gigabit on a pair of strands if the light source were enhanced and the cable runs were 200meters or less.
also, their is multimode fiber which can send and recieve on the same strand, but this increases "crosstalk" and multimode fiber has less potential and less distance.

ANY arguements about Cu being slower is simply not true UNTIL error corrention on the data is significant and causes more re-send requests on the data and/or the cable lenght reaches the limits of Cu's conductivity and cause more data errors. remember, electrical signals travel at the speed of light, or VERY near it on Cu, Fiber offers no speed improvement.

in fact, wireless should technically be the quickest, but not the highest thoroughput. the shortest path between to places is a straight line.

 

[huesmann]

What's the difference between Cat5 and Cat5e?

 

[ERJ]

What's the difference between Cat5 and Cat5e?

Pretty much it is the number of twists over length. The higher the number of twists, the less crosstalk, the higher the quality of signal over distance. Cat 5e has more twists over a length then Cat 5 does, so it is rated for longer distance at higher speeds.

 

[cremefilled]

remember, electrical signals travel at the speed of light, or VERY near it on Cu, Fiber offers no speed improvement.

Really getting into the arcanery here. . . but light pulses over fiber have to be remodulated back to electrical pulses (computers don't understand light, they understand voltage pulses), and there would be some latency in that. So copper, given that there are no signal errors, should be a little "faster" than fiber.

 

[huesmann]

Originally posted by: ERJ

What's the difference between Cat5 and Cat5e?

Pretty much it is the number of twists over length. The higher the number of twists, the less crosstalk, the higher the quality of signal over distance. Cat 5e has more twists over a length then Cat 5 does, so it is rated for longer distance at higher speeds.

If you only have short runs of Cat5 (<100') can you still get Gigabit speeds or do you really need Cat5e?

 

[CheetahMk2]

Bah! You yungins' don't have hands-on experience with stuff like this like me : )

Max transfer rates.. yeah.. tried that with a guy in the building across from mine... and across campus. We have a fiber full duplex switched network. 31MB/s, but he has RAID, I don't. I was downloading from him.

I switched over to copper with GBIC's, I get 25 sometimes 30. I think it is more with my hard drive. I haven't tested it like with fiber...

Bottom line is fiber has less signal degredation. Cat5e has a max cable run of like 100ft. The fiber network cards are (getting) cheaper, but the switches will tear you a new one. And fiber you can upgrade in-place to 10 Gbit. Copper..... you have to worry about wires corroding, and if they don't, signal quality. Ever wonder why only 4 wires out of 8 are used in Cat5?

 

[ElectricLegs]

Gig Ethernet is limited by your PCI bus and Hd's more than anything. I get 70+MBS on a 66mhz PCI slot on my Tyan Dual XP 2460 and 30-40 on all my 33 mhz slots. It's still worth every penny if you move media files around yur lan.

Most Cat5 fits the Cat5e spec too.

 

[ericlp]

No... It's not JUST for porn... 🙂 You can back up your hard drive really quickly! You can also run vitual CD's and install game images to them. Who wants to wait that long for a game to load on 10/100 Network? Might as well speed it up a bit.

 

[albrandwood]

Much more relevent to the topic ... anyone know a good source of managed 8/16 port switches? (100 or 1Gb)

Thx

@shley