On Sat, Jun 04, 2005 at 07:44:45PM +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote: > Am 2005-06-04 15:27:04, schrieb Miquel van Smoorenburg: > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > > Simon Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >I am after some general advice or info on people's experiences with quad > > >port ethernet cards. Any assistance would be much appreciated. > > > > > >For this, I am specifically looking to use *quad* port ethernet cards, > > >due to the number of ports and physical size of the hardware required for > > >my > > >configuration. I will probably need two per box (+ onboard port = 9 ports > > >total). > > > > I don't think GigE quad port ethernet cards exist, so you're > Ehm, Intel Pro 1000MT Quad-Port Server ?
I wonder how well THAT one works... > > talking about 9 100 mbit ports, right ? Why not use a single > > GigE port ? If you need multiple interfaces, use VLANs. > > Because some people do not want to install the hell ? > Or for security reason ? > > If the GBit NIC is broken, all attached subnest are down. A single-port E1000 with VLANs will give you better performance than 10x E100 in my experience. First, because the E1000 has much better interrupt mitigation hardware and drivers than just about every other NIC I know of. Second, because it is just one PCI device and not 10 trying to contend for the bus... Third, because it is *MUCH* cheaper, so you can move that $$$ to something more important, such as more CPU power or a server board with PCI-X/133 slots... Even using *two* E1000 so that you get failover (with or without channel bonding) is still a better idea than 4 or so 4-port 100Base-TX NICs IMHO. OTOH, you need a gigabit switch with proper VLAN security, which is not always easy to get... I am moving all multi-NIC routers we have to multi-NIC routers with E1000s for that reason. Even if we keep a 100BaseTX heartbeat on a E1000, it still behaves much better than the E100 and 3COMs we were using... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
