any major pitfalls of installing gigabit ethernet?

[shiyan]

My parents' office network of 5 computers (will eventually be up to 8) and 1 network printer is currently wired with 100mbps ethernet and a 8 port switch.

I'm thinking of upgrading the network with some gigabit stuff - the wires need to be redone anyway (hidden in those plastic things), but have a few questions

- are Dlink products trustworthy (looking at a Dlink 8 port gigabit switch and ADSL Modem/router)?
- am I limited to using Dlink network cards or will other brands (such as onboard gigabit ports) work too?
- if I connect the current 100mbps switch's uplink to one of the gigabit switch's ports, would they work together? (I'm thinking of leaving the network printer and a router/modem connected to the 100mbps switch, leaving the computers connected to the gigabit switch)

thanks for any and all comments - I'm a bit clueless at this

 

[NsOmNiA91130]

They should work together, I have a hub split off of a router in my room (even though it's 10Mbps >_<)

By the way, Gigabit ethernet rocks. You could reach a theoretical maximum of 125 MB/s

 

[shiyan]

awsome

so access to the network share could get close to as fast as a local hard disk?

 

[laynlow]

I have never had much luck with D-link. My preference falls with Netgear or Linksys.

 

[NsOmNiA91130]

No, actually. That is the theoretical maximum speed over Gigabit ethernet.

Ethernet Max: 1.25 MB/s
Fast Ethernet Max: 12.5 MB/s
Gigabit Ethernet Max: 125 MB/s


See a pattern?



You would also have to deal with other factors, such as HDD's, interference, etc.

I'd say you'd get about 90-95 MB/s

 

[fiji]

you also have to remember TCP/IP overhead

which amounts to a rather large percentage

 

[POL-tec2002]

what do u need gigabit ethernet for? Are u transfering some huge files or something?

 

[gorilly]

ht eplastic things you are on about are called trunking! they are what hold the cables on the walls...

At work i have 2 netgear gigabit switches, one is an 8 port and the other is a 24 port 10/100 with 2 gigabit ports. both are fantastic...

i tend to find linksys is more for the home user, while netgear has mors rock solid reliability

The 8 port i have is a GS108
the 24 port 10/100 with 2 gigabit ports is a FS626T

i would reccomend both of them to you...

i have them working with a 16 port linksys 10/100 and a 24 port netgear 10/100

don't forget always buy more ports than you need as you could always expand! i had to learn the hard way and had to buy switches quick as i ran out of ports.


By the way don't forget if you switch is gigabit it will only work at 10/100 unless you also have a gigabit network card on your computer. and your cable will need to be CAT5/E

Cheers!

PS if you get the 8 port GS108, make sure you can keep it cool as it has no built in fan where as the 24 port 10/100 with 2 gigabit ports FS626T has 2 or three built in fans and keeps itself cool

 

[gorilly]

what do u need gigabit ethernet for? Are u transfering some huge files or something?

what if you have 8 users trying to access files on a server... surely they get a faster access time than if 8 people were tying to access files over a 10/100

and in the past i have moved upto 15gb files over my network. and trust me its bloody fast!

 

[shiyan]

what do u need gigabit ethernet for? Are u transfering some huge files or something?

Outlook .pst files are roughly a gigabyte each

Thanks a lot for all the advice gorilly

 

[Ebola]

Delete some email. pst files have a 2 GB limit and are not suppose to be located on a network drive.

 

[gorilly]

Delete some email. pst files have a 2 GB limit and are not suppose to be located on a network drive.

pst files have a limit on office XP (outlook 2002).

if you are using office 2003, like people at the office i work at then they have an unlimited pst file size... which is not to my liking at all! one person has nearly 6GB... and when you put a file that big into a program as crappy as outlook problems happen all the time...


thunderbird all the way! woo

like ebola said. do not locate them on your network drive, only on the local hard drive.

 

[pik4chu]

pst files have a limit on office XP (outlook 2002).

if you are using office 2003, like people at the office i work at then they have an unlimited pst file size... which is not to my liking at all! one person has nearly 6GB... and when you put a file that big into a program as crappy as outlook problems happen all the time...


thunderbird all the way! woo

like ebola said. do not locate them on your network drive, only on the local hard drive.

Its been my personal experience that thunderbird has many more problems than outlook, its caused a few migranes in fact. Again its true that pst folders shouldnt be on network drives but that makes it difficult to back them up. So if you need to do that you are limited in your options as for placement of the files. Unless you want to make a script that copies the pst files to the server each night before backups run, which would likely help performance of local Outlook but gig ethernet will still help some. You are of course still limited to the speed at which the network drives can be accessed, if several people are acessing thier gig pst files at once and the network server doesnt have fast drive, no amount of network upgrades will help that.

 

[shiyan]

Delete some email. pst files have a 2 GB limit and are not suppose to be located on a network drive.

they're work email and can't be deleted

but I can move them onto the local computers and split them into smaller .pst filels

pst files have a limit on office XP (outlook 2002).

if you are using office 2003, like people at the office i work at then they have an unlimited pst file size... which is not to my liking at all! one person has nearly 6GB... and when you put a file that big into a program as crappy as outlook problems happen all the time...


thunderbird all the way! woo

like ebola said. do not locate them on your network drive, only on the local hard drive.

that's good to know, thanks

Its been my personal experience that thunderbird has many more problems than outlook, its caused a few migranes in fact. Again its true that pst folders shouldnt be on network drives but that makes it difficult to back them up. So if you need to do that you are limited in your options as for placement of the files. Unless you want to make a script that copies the pst files to the server each night before backups run, which would likely help performance of local Outlook but gig ethernet will still help some. You are of course still limited to the speed at which the network drives can be accessed, if several people are acessing thier gig pst files at once and the network server doesnt have fast drive, no amount of network upgrades will help that.

Yeah backups are the reason they're located on the server.

I used Exchange before which was very good speed wise in the network, but I wasn't sure how to back up the Exchange database (and didn't have the time to learn), so I ended up letting everyone use .pst files

I guess I could try and take some time to learn how to backup Exchange hehe

 

[Vertical_Zer0]

I think the only downfall is that it's still a bit more expensive, but the performance is probably worth it.

 

[su root]

A few warnings: Most people don't see speeds too far over double the regular 100Mbps (so, from 8mb/s with 100mbit to 16mb/s with gigabit)

This is due to harddrive and bus limitations. If you want higher speeds, you will need to have the hardware to support it: 64-bit PCI Gigabit NICs, 64-bit PCI RAID controller with some some fast disks.

Even with this, copper has it's limits.. fibre is better if you are looking for high speeds.

 

[TombKeeper]

No, actually. That is the theoretical maximum speed over Gigabit ethernet.

Ethernet Max: 1.25 MB/s
Fast Ethernet Max: 12.5 MB/s
Gigabit Ethernet Max: 125 MB/s


See a pattern?



You would also have to deal with other factors, such as HDD's, interference, etc.

I'd say you'd get about 90-95 MB/s

What!? I read before that you could reach around 200+ Mbps...with gigabit

You HAVE to use PCI cards to increase speeds? What about motherboards with built in gigabit network ports? WOuld those be fast too? And the raid pci card would be good only if you're using a raid, right?

 

[elfiena]

What!? I read before that you could reach around 200+ Mbps...with gigabit

You HAVE to use PCI cards to increase speeds? What about motherboards with built in gigabit network ports? WOuld those be fast too? And the raid pci card would be good only if you're using a raid, right?

your "mbps" is referring to mega-bits per second

his "MB/s" is referring to megabytes per second

1 byte = 8 bit

also, there are only certain raids that offer higher read/write performances. (raid 0, 5, 7) and it really doesn't matter what speed cards transfer data at. Disks are physical & mechanical media, you deal with data seek time and disk spinning rpm. The maximum data transfer rate of your card will never be reached. Even with 15000 RPM disks, you are only utilizing about 70% of your overall bandwidth.

 

[su root]

What!? I read before that you could reach around 200+ Mbps...with gigabit

You HAVE to use PCI cards to increase speeds? What about motherboards with built in gigabit network ports? WOuld those be fast too? And the raid pci card would be good only if you're using a raid, right?

Gigabit gives you 1000Megabits per second, or 125Megabytes per second.

You don't HAVE to use pci cards.. You can use 32-bit PCI or USB (is there any USB gig NICs?) or onboard NICs, however, those generally won't get you the high speeds.

My onboard NIC gives me about 15-25mb, depending on what I'm transferring to/from. Eg: Transferring from a single IDE harddrive through a 32-bit PCI card to onboard gig NIC onto a pair of RAID0 raptors is about 16-17MB/s. But from the pair of raptors & onboard NIC to another onboard NIC with a pair of raptors is around 25MB/s.

The missing 100MB/s is a combination of things: Harddrive limitations (my harddrives can push 90MB/s), 32-bit PCI bus limitations (limited to 133MB/s max transfer speed for all connected devices), the fact that the onboard NICs are not very powerful in comparison to server gig NICs, the limitations of copper.

Like many things, consumer components are severly stripped down versions of professional components for a price break (that equates directly to speed and quality loss).

 

[MadSkillzMan]

i have a gigabyte server board that has Gigabit ethernet, and my Dual G5 has it built in. HOLY CRAP do network renders RULE on this!

I dont think youd have any problems. Add SATA in there and you get an even better increase