Paul Rech wrote: > > I need a high speed network connection between 2 database servers on > IBM Netfinity servers. > What are my options and what hardware do I need? > > I was looking to gigabit ethernet first, as I figured it would be the > cheapest. > But a sysadmin I know said he wasn't sure but he thought about $4,000 > for two cards and a switch. > > Is it really that much for gigabit hardware? no > Is gigabit the cheapest alternative? gigabit is very cheap > What kind of switch is required? anything that supports 100/1000 or 10/100/1000 though you have to watch how many ports are rated at the gigabit and you probably want to make sure it supports full-duplex. > What's the difference between a switch and a hub? A switch separates traffic so only the machine it's destined for gets it which makes more bandwidth available to each machine, a hub is one big connected wire > What's the actual transfer rate you can achieve? > 1,000,000,000 bits per sec/ 8bits = 125,000,000 bytes per sec > 125,000,000 bytes per sec / reality =~ 20MB/sec I'm guessing. In theory the max is 128MB but reality puts in a 30-40% overhead hit (though switches help reduce this) so you should be able to drive to 80MB or more (of course your drives might not be able to keep up) > > If someone is familiar with this, could you send me some part numbers I > can look-up? > use two gigabit cards (about $50 each) and a cross over cable. (d-link DGE500-T) which I believe is supported by linux (might be the DGE550-T) netgear has a gigabit card as well (ga620t) around $300, that is supported in linux and I also believe linkysys(2f24g2) has a 24port 10/100 switch with 2 10/100/1000 ports for under $500 Eric > Thanks. > > Paul > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list