I'm looking at upgrading a small business network (~40 clients). Right now we are on a few 24-port hubs. We are going to get rid of them, and go with 3com switches.
We also want to improve the backbone to the server, our inital thought was gigabit over copper but I have a few concerns. Based on my basic knowledge of Ethernet technology, only one packet can be transmited at a single time by a NIC. Even though we would have gigabit to the server, the packet isn't going to move much faster than the client can support. (I guess some buffering would occur at the switch, but really how much?). But if this was really the case, then what would the point of gigabit technology be except if you have gigabit clients or more bigger backbone stuff?
Based on this, wouldn't aggregated NICs be a better solution? I've been looking at the 3Com SLB (Smart Load Balancing) technology. I was thinking 2 subnets with aggregated NICs (maybe 2 each) to each subnet.
The server should be able to handle a lot more than it is right now. It is RAID 5 with 10k RPM drives and dual PIIIs.
Is my logic flawed here?
Thanks for any suggestions you may have
Bryan
We also want to improve the backbone to the server, our inital thought was gigabit over copper but I have a few concerns. Based on my basic knowledge of Ethernet technology, only one packet can be transmited at a single time by a NIC. Even though we would have gigabit to the server, the packet isn't going to move much faster than the client can support. (I guess some buffering would occur at the switch, but really how much?). But if this was really the case, then what would the point of gigabit technology be except if you have gigabit clients or more bigger backbone stuff?
Based on this, wouldn't aggregated NICs be a better solution? I've been looking at the 3Com SLB (Smart Load Balancing) technology. I was thinking 2 subnets with aggregated NICs (maybe 2 each) to each subnet.
The server should be able to handle a lot more than it is right now. It is RAID 5 with 10k RPM drives and dual PIIIs.
Is my logic flawed here?
Thanks for any suggestions you may have
Bryan