On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 10:48:21PM +0000, Matthew Sackman wrote: > On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:40:52PM +0100, Victor Julien wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I want to build a debian based router/gateway/fileserver/mailserver for a > > home network with 12 clients. It will be quite low budget as the server is > > a > > Pentium 166Mhz. I want the network to be 100mbit fullduplex, so I want to > > buy > > a Nic for the server. Which one is best for maximum performance and > > stability? Intel, 3com, SMC or just a cheap Realtek? I think the nic should > > be using the cpu as little as possible... > > Well I'm a poor student... so I started with Netgear FA311's which are > terrible and gave me a *LOT* of agro -> steer well clear (hint: they drop > packets). > > I've now got a pair of realtek's which are a damn site better, but I still > have problems with enbd under high load, which I suspect are attributed to > them. Plus when one machine is under high load, an ssh can take up to 15 > seconds to connect.
The realtek supposedly has a really wonky and expensive DMA scheme that makes performance similar to a PIO card. Tulip-based cards are very cheap as well, and may serve about as well as the 3Com and Intel cards.
