SATA 300 or Giga nic?

[Kwatt]

It all began in this thread.

I put together a low power box to try out as a Freenas file server. The specs are listed in the thread linked above. The Asus box I am using has only one PCI slot. I know my patch cable needs replacing.

Will I get better results from a SATA 300 card or a Giga bit nic ? Like this one.
If the nic is the way to go I will need a switch recommendation also. Prefer to purchase at Newegg.

Nothing special needed just a basic file server. But, I would rather not have to upgrade for awhile.

The hard drive is SATA 300.

Kwatt

 

[Zap]

If you're not running RAID 0 or 5, then neither. One single HDD will have an STR just below a 100Mbit network connection. Gigabit Ethernet or SATA 300 will only benefit burst rates, which may help if you're running apps off the drive. If you're just using it as storage, then burst rate probably wouldn't help much.

 

[imported_latuszek]

Originally posted by: Zap
One single HDD will have an STR just below a 100Mbit network connection.

100megabit network connection is about 12.5 megabytes/second. I dont know about you, but all the drives i've had in the past ten years or so can beat an STR of 12.5 megabytes/second.

Kwatt: I would definately recommend the gigabit network card. SATA300 vs SATA150 will get you virtually no improvements.

 

[yyrkoon]

Originally posted by: Zap
If you're not running RAID 0 or 5, then neither. One single HDD will have an STR just below a 100Mbit network connection. Gigabit Ethernet or SATA 300 will only benefit burst rates, which may help if you're running apps off the drive. If you're just using it as storage, then burst rate probably wouldn't help much.

Wrong, read my post Here . Those GbE speeds are with Jumbo frames disabled even. check back tomorrow on that forum for speeds with jumbo frames enabled, and other details (trust me, it makes one hell of a difference)

Anyhow SATA2 is basically 99% marketing, and 1% NCQ, however, if you use a port multiplier with multiple disks connected to a single SATA2 port, the speed difference potential is huge (384MB/s max, vs 192MB/s max).

 

[yyrkoon]

Oh hmm, sorry to the OP, Intel Pro 1000 line is probably the best for GbE. You can find them at several reputable places, but newegg doesn't seem to carry them. Also keep in mind they are a PCI-E 1x part. Tiger Direct, TheNerds.Net, eWiz.com all should be fine to purchase them from. There are also sites on the internet that will tell you if some resellers are just too good to be true (www.resellerratings.com, or something like that)

 

[Madwand1]

Realtek-based GbE NICs are the most common, and AFAIK, have by far the highest CPU utilization. (But I'm not sure about VIA.)

The Intel Pro/1000's are the best suggestion here -- for their blend of low CPU utilization, higher performance, driver support, etc. In PCI, the Pro/1000 MT's the older generation, and probably still fine. The newer generation's called Pro/1000 GT. Newegg has some now at around $30.

But, as you were not even close to hitting 100 Mb/s speed, I think you have more tuning to do before you'll see a real benefit from gigabit. It might not hurt to raise the network threshold first, and then tuning its feed, but if for some reason the underlying system/design is not capable of > 100 Mb/s speeds, you might waste ~$30 in the Intel GbE NIC.

You might also encounter limitations in the PCI performance in that chipset. And unless you tune the overall performance higher, you might see no practical difference between the various GbE NICs -- if they're all seriously under-driven, then their throughput will look similar. But if a reason that they're under-driven is because the system is CPU-bound at times, then an Intel or Marvell-based NIC would be better than a Realtek-based one.

 

[cmetz]

Kwatt, you have a software problem. Neither of those hardware upgrades will fix it.

 

[Kwatt]

Originally posted by: cmetz
Kwatt, you have a software problem. Neither of those hardware upgrades will fix it.

Upon futher testing I see you are correct.
Transfering a 694.5 MB iso from freenas to my ubuntu box took 6 min. 16 sec.
After changing the patch cable to a Cat5e
Transfering a 694.5 MB iso from freenas to my ubuntu box took 3 min. 30 sec.
Transfering a 694.5 MB iso from ubuntu box to freenas took 5 min. 04 sec.
Changed the drive in the ubuntu box out to a drive with Win2K
Transfering a 694.5 MB iso from freenas to Win2K took 1 min. 52 sec.

So it seems ubuntu is not set up correctly.
The nic is properly identifed by ubuntu.

Any hints or links for information on what to check out?


Kwatt


EDIT:
Mounted Freenas share with NFS used same 694.5MB iso.
From Freenas to Ubuntu took 1 min. 08 sec.
From Ubuntu to Freenas took 1 min. 54 sec.

 

[cmetz]

Kwatt, exactly how are you transferring from your freenas to your Ubuntu box that takes 6:16 or 3:30? (if swapping the cable helps that much, then the other cable is probably bad)

About a minute is what you should expect.

 

[Kwatt]

Originally posted by: cmetz
Kwatt, exactly how are you transferring from your freenas to your Ubuntu box that takes 6:16 or 3:30? (if swapping the cable helps that much, then the other cable is probably bad)

About a minute is what you should expect.

I was just draging from one directory to another.
I replaced both cables and cut the time in about half.
Then I swaped the new out with the old until I found out which cable was bad. It was the hand made cable.

Mounting the directory on the Freenas box to the Ubuntu box using NFS did cut the time to 1 min. 8 sec. See EDIT above post.

If I had known how well NFS worked I would have been using it for the last couple of years.
I still have problems, but I will have to do more looking to figure out what they are. I think a lot of them may have to do with this outdated rev. of Ubuntu.(5.10)

I am still going to get a few Giga nic's. Most likely the Intel GT's and a Giga switch.

Does anyone have any recomendations for a good basic 8-port switch? Any of these that are less than $100 from Newegg. I have had good luck in dealing with Newegg. I would just as soon stick with them if their price is within 10% or so. Of course if they don't sell a good one that is a different thing.

If you know of a better one that Newegg does not sell that is $100 dollars or less what is the maker/model # please.

Thanks

Kwatt

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Kwatt
Does anyone have any recomendations for a good basic 8-port switch?

How basic do you want it? This one of unknown quality from a reasonable manufacturer, $30.48 shipped, no rebates for an 8 port GBe switch.

Originally posted by: latuszek
100megabit network connection is about 12.5 megabytes/second. I dont know about you, but all the drives i've had in the past ten years or so can beat an STR of 12.5 megabytes/second.

Originally posted by: yyrkoon
Wrong

Okay, okay, foot (keyboard?) in mouth. Bits, bytes... I just ordered a gigabit switch and I'll see for myself how transfers fly. Got one setup with an Abit SLI board with onboard GBe, another setup with Intel CSA GBe. HDDs are single SATA (SATA II on SLI board with 16MB cache). Sustained transfers right now with nothing else running from one Windows client to another hovers around 85%. We'll see if GBe will sustain more than 8.5%.

I'm being serious here. I really did just place the order for the switch.

 

[cmetz]

Kwatt, if in the past you were using SMB/CIFS, that's part of your problem. Microsoft's file sharing protocol is broken in ways that mean poor performance. SAMBA on *IX systems can deliver anywhere from a bit better than Windows performance to a lot less, depending on how things have been set up and tuned. NFSv3 is more of a "just works" kind of protocol.

I have the SMC8508T and like it. I have read that they silently cheapened the hardware and the currently shipping revision now has severe performance problems with jumbo frames. Until I know more I would stay away.

I have had a lot of trouble with Netgear.

I have a Hawking SOHO gigabit switch, it does not support jumbo frames, but it does otherwise work fine. I consider them and Trendnet to be peers, they just take a Taiwanese commodity chip(set) and build a reference design box.

I like jumbo frames, jumbo frames can help your NFS performance if you configure everything properly, but they are a somewhat advanced thing to manage, you have to choose your components very carefully, navigate vendor lies, and configure everything right.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: cmetz
I like jumbo frames, jumbo frames can help your NFS performance if you configure everything properly, but they are a somewhat advanced thing to manage, you have to choose your components very carefully, navigate vendor lies, and configure everything right.

I was wondering about jumbo frames. I heard that everything on the network has to be configured to the same settings for maximum benefit.

 

[cmetz]

Not just maximum benefit. Hosts with mismatched jumbo frame settings will kind of but not fully talk with each other. It can cause all sorts of problems. All hosts on a L2 subnet have to agree (without some very advanced hacks). This means that for a lot of SOHO applications you can't use jumbo frames, all it takes is one device that's not jumbo capable and you're stuck.

 

[Madwand1]

TCP should be fine with mixed frame sizes, assuming that the switches and bridges/etc., in the path support the minimum of the maximum frame sizes of both ends of the link.

You're finished if your switches don't support jumbo frames, but you can get away with mixed frame size for much communication. The fallback if you run into problems is to disable jumbo frames.

 

[Kwatt]

Originally posted by: cmetz
Kwatt, if in the past you were using SMB/CIFS, that's part of your problem. Microsoft's file sharing protocol is broken in ways that mean poor performance. SAMBA on *IX systems can deliver anywhere from a bit better than Windows performance to a lot less, depending on how things have been set up and tuned. NFSv3 is more of a "just works" kind of protocol.

I have the SMC8508T and like it. I have read that they silently cheapened the hardware and the currently shipping revision now has severe performance problems with jumbo frames. Until I know more I would stay away.

I have had a lot of trouble with Netgear.

I have a Hawking SOHO gigabit switch, it does not support jumbo frames, but it does otherwise work fine. I consider them and Trendnet to be peers, they just take a Taiwanese commodity chip(set) and build a reference design box.

I like jumbo frames, jumbo frames can help your NFS performance if you configure everything properly, but they are a somewhat advanced thing to manage, you have to choose your components very carefully, navigate vendor lies, and configure everything right.

Yes I have been using SMB out of habit since I no longer use Windows much. ( I have a drive with Win2K installed in a removable rack I sometimes use for some light gaming ) I could have went to NFS awhile ago. If I had know it was better I would have.


I don't think I care to try jumbo frames at this time.
As of now these are what I am looking at. For nics PWLA8391GT for switch either the SMC SMCGS8 or the TRENDnet TEG-S80TXE.

I would like to double or better the transfer rate I am getting now.



Thanks for info.

Kwatt

 

[cmetz]

I've been happy with the Intel NICs, they're cheap and they work well. The SMCGS8 and 8508T are the same electronics, btw. Don't know anything about the Trendnet.

 

[Kwatt]

SNIP

Originally posted by: cmetz
The SMCGS8 and 8508T are the same electronics, btw.

Did not know that, thanks. The current 8508T is getting some bad reviews.




Kwatt

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Kwatt
I don't think I care to try jumbo frames at this time.

It's OK to not use them, but in your situation, with a low-powered computer and PCI bus, I'd keep the door open by getting a switch that supports it. So: If you get adequate performance without jumbo frames, then don't bother with them. If not, then it'd be nice to have that option to try.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Zap
This one of unknown quality from a reasonable manufacturer, $30.48 shipped, no rebates for an 8 port GBe switch.
...
I just ordered a gigabit switch and I'll see for myself how transfers fly. Got one setup with an Abit SLI board with onboard GBe, another setup with Intel CSA GBe. HDDs are single SATA (SATA II on SLI board with 16MB cache). Sustained transfers right now with nothing else running from one Windows client to another hovers around 85%. We'll see if GBe will sustain more than 8.5%.

Wow, Buy.com is fast. Ordered yesterday and I'm already using the switch today. Very basic. Instruction booklet basically said "plug it in, hook up cables." No mention of updatable firmware, jumbo frames, whatever. So, I plugged it in. Both computers that have GBe detected it right away. Some quick tests showed sustained transfers over 30%, meaning 3X what 100Mbit can do. Now, why didn't the previous 100Mbit go over about 85% utilization?

Anyways, thanks to latuszek and yyrkoon for pointing out my retardation without actually calling me a retard. There are others around here who don't extend that courtesy.