Re: Network card recommendation - testing

[Alvin Oga <aoga@mail.Linux-Consulting.com>]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005, Anders Breindahl wrote:

> Please educate me: What exactly determines a NIC's reliability? What defines 
> its effectiveness?

use 2 machines for all tests, but use the same nic card in both machines

scp  machine1:/opt/test/10MB.tgz  machine2:/opt/junk

----

try the same test with another pair of nic cards

----

during the tests... if you see "stalled" as an error message/warning 
for scp:
	- throw that nic card away ..
	- or throw away the switch/hub  (don't use one if you want to
	  eliminate the hubs/switches and use a cross over cable instead)
	- or throw away your ethernet cables
		- you cable should be xx' long and no more than
		2(?) switch/routers between 2 machines ..
	- or throw away the kernel and drivers
	- or change your tcp/ip variable options
	- or ???

- you should be able to run at 50% - 75% or faster of sustained bandwidth
  between any 2 machines  

	- 100Mbps --> you should see  8MByte or 10MByte per sec transfers
	( 1 second to transfer a 8MB file )

- given a choice ..
	- i'd use intel chipsets ( on the motherboard ) or pci cards

	- i'd avoid broadcom chipsets unless you know how to tweek the
	  kernel drivers

c ya
alvin