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one_bored_si
join:2003-03-10
Montebello, CA
 ·AT&T Yahoo
| Re: I still have 10mbit the fastest speed i can get on my 100mb lan is 87% of the theoritical max. I have a 7200rpm 8mb cache WD and 3200+, i dont see how anyone hopes to get half the capacity on a gigabit lan. I read this forum prob. last night and it seems like false advertisment to me considering Linksys' product push towards home consumers is so evident in places like Fry's Electronics. The manufactuer should make it clear what is needed to get those speeds on the box. | |
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| reelbigfish
join:2002-06-06
Boston, MA
 ·Comcast
 ·Comcast Digital Vo..
| The whole point of Ethernet with it's small packet size (1500 bytes) is for a lot of traffic from many computers to flow at a good speed, not a few computers at a high data rate. It's more of a backbone technology, which is why in home networks, you never get full utilization. | |
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jasonpel
Cruising At 5 Mbps
join:2003-02-17
Arlington, TX
| Re: I still have 10mbit said by reelbigfish  :
The whole point of Ethernet with it's small packet size (1500 bytes) is for a lot of traffic from many computers to flow at a good speed, not a few computers at a high data rate. It's more of a backbone technology, which is why in home networks, you never get full utilization.
Kind of makes Giga-bit for the home seem like a huge waste of money then. | |
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| | | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| Re: I still have 10mbit Graph your traffic sometime. First of all, you have an internet connection that supports less than 5 megabits per second for the most part. That is more than likely the main source of your traffic. Just about the only other usage that is put on the average home network is files being copied from one system to the other. Gig is a waste at home.
puritan | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
2 edits | Re: I still have 10mbit said by wentlanc :
Graph your traffic sometime. First of all, you have an internet connection that supports less than 5 megabits per second for the most part. That is more than likely the main source of your traffic.
Not necessarily... a lot of software will run over a network... and if it is graphic or photo/video involving.. it can amount to a lot of bandwidth.
Now a gigabit could be over kill, but 100 megabit could easily fall short as well.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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rogue_
I Have A Secret Window
Premium
join:2001-10-17
Lake Hiawatha, NJ | Match my HD speeds please! That's all I want. Data transfer across the network that matches my HD rates. Really, that's all! | |
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ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY | Overkill Unless I had 10 or more 100Mbps. machines really screaming at each other all day long, I don't need it. | |
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ArchAngel21x
MacFan Pro
Premium
join:2001-10-28
Lincoln, NE | Re: Overkill LOL. I loved the way you worded that. | |
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Cheeze It
join:2002-04-02
Denver, CO | I've maxxed it I've managed to get a sustained 12.5MB/sec from my server to my computer using FTP, and about 9MB/sec using SMB by dragging and letting Windows copy..
FTP = FAST
SMB = Pretty fast | |
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jasonpel
Cruising At 5 Mbps
join:2003-02-17
Arlington, TX
| FireWire ok, Gigabit - Overkill It seems to me that I've only transfered back and forth to my two computers of nearly identical hardware (Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm ATA-133 / SATA-150) a steady 30MB/sec read and write. I found this by using a FireWire (400Mbps) network. Seems to me like Gigabit for the home is a really big waste. I am going to be setting up a RAID and I will reply within a week if I get them in time the speeds which are read/writen over the FireWire. | |
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| wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| Re: FireWire ok, Gigabit - Overkill I have two Seagate 120 gig SATA-150 disks in a RAID 0 array. Guess what, you still cannot hardly touch gig. The biggest bottleneck with gig is the BUS speed of the machine. in fact, the most sure fire way to drive the CPU of a server up is to introduce gig-e. Gigabit, and 10 Gigabit ethernet has it's place. But the home most definitely is not it.
puritan | |
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Nevster
Premium
join:2002-04-06
Dalhousie, NB
| Bottlenecks... Well, lets see...
We have HDD access rates.
We have RAM cache.
We have CPU.
We have motherboard bus rates.
We have TCP adjustments.
We have driver software.
We have consumer hardware. (ie: cheap/affordable)
We have network settings.
Where's your bottleneck? | |
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| batmanst
join:2003-12-23
Beverly Hills, CA | Re: Bottlenecks... Broadband still too slow for me even at 6m/608, we need something faster and right away sir! | |
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| | HHS_Student
join:2004-01-23
Marion, OH
|  Re: Bottlenecks...
 report from Marion, Ohioh looking really well. got countless people online and MANY more to come. Everyday i have gone by the cable office there has been no where to park and the line has been insane. so i believe it will make adelphia a well know company in this area after powerlink is up and going.:) | |
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Packet
@foxinternet.c
| Nemzow says In reading book Martin Nemzow wrote titled Enterprise Network Performance Optimization. It refers to the fact that real world networks, with many factors that are involved in real use; the speed one can normally expect compared to the lab or ieee specification is 1/3 or 33 percent of performance rated. | |
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| wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| Re: Nemzow says Probably the biggest reason for that is poor network design. Usually there is something overlooked in the network layout, or in the architecture of one of the core switches that limits the throughput of the network as a whole. Careful planning will allow you to use most of your allocated bandwidth on the network.
puritan | |
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| | gpranzo
join:2002-10-30
Seattle, WA
| Re: Nemzow says  Hardly ever it is a network design issue my dear puritan. Business decisions and financial models usually temper the best non-blocking engineering designs. Oversubscription of links at the last mile or in the back bone is never the first choice of a good network engineer, but that of the MBA man running the financial spreadsheets... | |
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| | | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| Re: Nemzow says That was the biggest load I've read today.
Financial models have absolutely nothing to do with network designs.
If you implement a network that has a bottleneck, then it is a bad design. Which in turn makes it a design issue.
And not everyone has "good" network engineers.
puritan | |
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| | | | gpranzo
join:2002-10-30
Seattle, WA
| Re: Nemzow says Easy there puritan. Didn't think you were going to take it personal.
So I guess that if everyone in an apartment complex of 100 units should be guaranteed 1.5Mbs of cable service bw so that your "good" design practices are followed you should fullfill it on the backend with 150Mbs of dedicated bw (3 DS3's+). Hmmm.. how much would that cost per month per user? Certainly not the $45 we are paying today.
So you see how oversubscription by design can be a good thing. In this case making the service affordable.;)
Its easy to design just basing capacity planning on technical specs of port and backplane speeds. (that's basic plumbing that in the business has a very simplistic nickname "speeds and feeds" for a reason)
Though I agree with you that not every company can afford a good net engineer, you have to know that the good ones still need to work with the business office throughout the planning stages of a network service. Otherwise they can only be succesful where money is no object kind of places (government, research, microsoft) or Wonderland, though I hear they are laying people off there too... Peace brother! | |
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shuubz
A Good Kind Of Pain
join:2001-02-12
Dexter, MI
|  Nature of the beast
If you are using a hub, you also have to deal with collision issues, in which case you hit the wall at 60% utilization. This is CDMA/CD after all, as in Collision Detection, not Collision Avoidance.
This is of course not factoring wiring crosstalk within cabling, interference from electrical and electronic devices (pumps, motors, anything at all, really), attenuation, improper termination, under-spec cable (you did get at least CAT 6/6e, didn't you?), and all the wondrous bottlenecks within the average PC.
In case you're bored, there are a legion software/firmware issues as well.
Unless you have a serious workstation with a server-grade motherboard, storage, CPU (can I have 2 please?), RAM, and a TOE (TCP/IP Offload Engine, a processor especially intended for handling TCP/IP traffic and taking that load away from the CPU), your drivers are well-written, and you don't have a crippled TCP/IP stack (like in Windows, any version), you will never see a near-1Gb effective throughput on your desk, let alone on the wire.
That sort of thing is doable in a properly configured switched copper gigabit backbone with Solaris 10 (yep, it's not out yet) or certain BSD/Linux-based systems, or with a FibreChannel storage array and storage switch using single-mode fiber pairs. It is also possible under laboratory conditions with a sizeable budget and good experimental controls.
Unless you fancy spending impressive cash for bragging rights, there is no practical application for this tech within the home. Switched 100Mb (megabit) over CAT 5/5e will give you approx 10MB/s (megabyte/second) throughput (best-case), which is sufficient for a high-quality video stream.
If you are running a business, please see above.
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What is left for the meek is not worth having...I don't need a shepherd, I need a Muse...The only thing I can call my own is who I am; insecurity is pointless. | |
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GigUser
@attbi.com
| Re: Nature of the beast Not all of the comments above are entirely accurate. I find gigabit in the home quite useful. I've got what I'd consider average desktop machines(some Dell 400SCs that cost about 299$) coupled with a linksys gigabit switch that cost about 150$. I've always set up my hard drives in some sort of software raid(stripped usually) which gives me about 50MB/s read speeds. I typically backup my kids dvds on one machine(rip & burn), then move them to another for storage. With gigabit I've seen about a ~4-5x speed improvement. When you are moving many gigs around the time saved is huge. Sure I never expected to see 1000mbs on a 33mhz pci bus, but 400mbs is not unreasonable, and certainly better than any 100mbs card. Given the cost of a good gigabit card is under 50$, and a gigabit switch can be had now for under 99$, the cost/benefit seems pretty reasonable to me for home use. | |
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| 
DrTCP
Yours truly
Premium,ExMod 1999-04
join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX
| said by shuubz :
(you did get at least CAT 6/6e, didn't you?)
Copper Gigabit ethernet is specified to Cat5 cabling by the spec. If you want tolerance you can get Cat5e. There is no place for Cat6 (other than wasting your money) in networking as 10GigE is all optical. Belkin and others want to sell those expensive Cat6 cables but they are not needed! | |
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| | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH | Re: Nature of the beast Amen to that DrTCP. Also, for those stupid enough to buy what are being sold as Cat7 cables just to say they have them.... The Cat7 cabling standard has not been decided on yet. So you may be buying the wrong cable in the end.
puritan | |
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| | | medici
join:2001-02-22
Shohola, PA
| Re: Nature of the beast
Belkin also sells cabling products through the consumer distribution chain:
»catalog.belkin.com/IWCatSectionV···d=201488).
Nevertheless, 100BaseTX requires two pair of CAT5 cable. Installed properly, there is no reason for anything more extravagant or expensive. I've even seen poorly installed, lower-quality cable support 100mbps traffic. The standard describes what's required to GUARANTEE 100BaseTX, that doesn't mean that it's not possible in less-than-ideal circumstances.
However, if you are running new cable today, you need to compare the cost of using CAT5 vs CAT6 or better. The most expensive part of installing cabling is the labor. Even if you do it yourself, you don't want to have to do it all over again in two years when you find you need to upgrade.
As long as the cable is installed within spec, you have the CAPABILITY of achieving full bandwidth.
As noted, TCP imposes overhead on each packet. But also, the task of maintaining a network and attended "chatter" also eat into bandwidth. Broadcasts, collisions (even on a switched network you get either collisions or "squelches" when multiple workstations try to access the same server), DHCP handshakes, ARP requests, lot of background noise. The more stuff on a network, the higher this background noise will be.
As to the value of GBE in the home, I think that's based on need. As another poster pointed out, frequently moving large video files across a LAN is a worthwhile reason for paying extra for GBE: even if you only get 1/4 of the maximum speed, that's still 4x better than full-bore 100BaseTx. | |
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belawrence
It's All About The Games
join:2000-08-06
Santee, CA | Re: Nature of the beast Sorry, my mistake. | |
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ArchAngel21x
MacFan Pro
Premium
join:2001-10-28
Lincoln, NE | Typo. That's CSMA/CD. Also, the TCP/IP overhead thing should be cleared up if Fast TCP is ever implemented in all networking equipment. | |
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| | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| Re: Nature of the beast said by ArchAngel21x :
Typo. That's CSMA/CD. Also, the TCP/IP overhead thing should be cleared up if Fast TCP is ever implemented in all networking equipment.
Ummmm...... that does not quite make sense. You sort of need all that overhead to tell the packets where they are going, and other silly information like that. And I'm pretty sure that all networking equipment, that needs to operate at layer 4, does have TCP implemented.
puritan | |
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| | | | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH | Re: Nature of the beast Good article. I missed the "Fast" part in your original post. Sorry about that!!
puritan | |
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jdir
join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA | 200Mbit? You can get gigabit hub and card now. Why go for 200mbit? | |
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| wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH | Re: 200Mbit? Why even go for 100 megabits when the majority of internet connections are less than 5 megabits??
puritan | |
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| | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio | Re: 200Mbit? There's more to a network than the stuff than goes outside the house? | |
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| | | wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
1 edit | Re: 200Mbit? True. However, the number of people that would actually use more than 100 Mbps, is extremely low. This fact makes the market for gig at home a poor seller for now.
puritan | |
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Sarick
It's Only Logical
Premium
join:2003-06-03
USA | Home networks don't need over 100mbps..
UNLESS THEY ARE RUNNING 10 or more computers and devices over a server client network. | |
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rolande
Certifiable
Premium,Mod
join:2002-05-24
Powell, OH
clubs:
Host:
Linksys
AT&T Midwest
| Major overkill for home use To put this issue in perspective, I work for a large Fortune 500 bank. We have dual redundant Gig trunks and etherchannels tying all of our distribution and core networks together across all of our buildings etc. in 2 large metropolitan areas. We have over 25,000 clients in the Chicago area alone plus all of our server infrastructure, web hosting with multi-tiered applications pushing consistent volumes of traffic on a daily basis. The funny thing is we average less than 1% utilization on any of our Core-Distribution links. That isn't to say we don't have spikes of activity occasionally, but they are usually so small they are barely noticeable. The only reason for Gig in the enterprise is for core connectivity to provide large buffer capacity with low latency queuing and serialization delay. This comes into play when deploying time sensitive/critical applications like VoIP or Multicast video streaming. That 1% utilization also reflects traffic from our current VoIP deployment with about 6000 stations in a 27 story building.
Because our network is so overbuilt with capacity, we can actually get away without defining any QoS policies within the campus environment. We never have enough traffic to cause the queues to back up to the point where a queuing priority decision is relevant. We ran our initial VoIP pilot for 3 months without any QoS defined within our network. My phone worked flawlessly the whole time.
--
Remember what they say: "There are 10 types of people in the world.. those who understand binary, and those who don't." | |
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Roop
join:2003-11-15
Ottawa, ON
·Cybersurf Corporat..
| gigE i've had a linksys 8 port gigabit switch for about a year. i have 2 PCs with gigabit nics (asus P4C800-E, intel CSA bus for NIC). they both have 2xraid 0. they are 400mbits between each other - 1 way. they can either send or receive and 400mbits. they can do both as well but that will tax the harddrives too much. the third computer is a 24x7 game/media/web server with a 2xraid 0 without a special bus for gigabit, just through pci. i get about 300mbits off that. the max sustained i see is around 50mbytes a sec on the CSA bus pcs and 35ish on the non-CSA bus.
for almost everyone i'd say don't get it. reasons to get gigabit:
you do tons of file transfers that are very large and you have very fast storage OR you have money to burn.
for me it's a good investment. transfers, even though no where near optimal, are 4x faster than normal 100mbit. it's all cat5e which seems to do the trick. with a nice 8 port switch, i can easily move the other PCs over when the time comes. | |
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| medici
join:2001-02-22
Shohola, PA
| Re: gigE The question is not whether or not its overkill. The question is whether it's a better long-term value.
All factors considered, GBE is less than 2x the cost of 100BaseTX, or around $1600 vs $900 for an 8-node home network (depending on how you value your time - I figured $500/day). Maybe you are doing something now that would make it worthwhile. For example, backing-up PC's across the network to unused space on other PCs, moving video across your LAN, sharing recorded TV programming between Windows Media PC's or personal video recorders, or multiple users playing MP3's from a central server.
But let's not forget that the computer industry is changing rapidly. A 20MB download took 1.5 hours to download just a few years ago at the average 50kbps connection speed. Now we think nothing of downloading 20MB across our cable or DSL links in few minutes. Can you predict that 100mbps will be enough in 2 years? How about 5 years? As consumer HSI speeds increase, movies will be downloaded (legally and illegally) or streamed like MP3's are now, and shared between PC's on your LAN. Are you really sure 100mbps will be enough?
The point is that the most expensive option is to install 100BaseTX today and then find you need to replace it in a few years. PCs will get faster, which will allow them to take better advantage of GBE in the future, at least within your LAN. Switches can be upgraded as necessary at low cost for better performance. But the cabling and cable installation is about 70% of the entire project: choose wrong today and you'll pay the penalty tomorrow. | |
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Sarick
It's Only Logical
Premium
join:2003-06-03
USA
·FrontierNet Intern..
| Re: flying @ 1000Mbits & loving it You have a real network.. A server designed for holding massive data across a local network. The average home user has 2 or more BOXES attached for miner internet and file sharing.
Looks like your network might not be average?
Are you using it as a busyness?
video editing.. 
Video editing in itself can load a drive on a box. Your going over a server possibly using more than 1 computer to render multiple images. I'm guessing you load up something set it to work mode. Go to the next box and load up something else. Then maybe on a third box play a game while the other boxes process data.
That's how to use a NETWORK.
--
Sarick's Dungeon Clipart Page
Trouble spelling? www.iespell.com | |
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kba4
join:2001-10-23
Canton, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| gigabit is for interconnects! isn't Gb an interconnect solution, at least for now? i mean even in most corporate setups, it's just to connect lots of high capacity switches together and maintain integrity. if your entire network is dependent on a max. of 100Mbps, serious bottlenecks can form at even medium usage. but with 1000 (10x 100), you have a lot more bandwidth available in that situation, and therefore potentially more productivity. placing a 1000Mb switch between 3 or more home PC's is most likely a real waste of money in the majority of situations; but with 300 workstations, a few of these things can really help.
remember, there was a time when 10Mbps was the standard for Home LAN's; 10/100 was biz-only once too.
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the USA is a weapon of mass destruction. | |
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Packet
@foxinternet.c
| Real World yes model all you want, financial or network engineering.
Most networks used in real world were built piece by piece. IP by IP. When I started an interest in this MS had banks of 386's responding to web requests. I am sure that is gone now.
Yes if you work at MS or a newer tech company you may have the latest access speed. But if you are working in a large company such as say GM or a Government funded hospital for instance it may take a while to get around to the latest and greatest. I worked in an academic hospital that was connected to another major hospital that has the most advanced trauma center. If you get hurt real bad they will medivac you there. It is also attached to an office that runs the Network. There they have engineers that sit and watch traffic via Bart a big dumb machine. I tried to download a pdf file when adobe acrobat was first out. It shut the connection down and refused it till the next day. In addition the two hospitals normally connected via line of sight micro waves.
With a T1 backup for if that fails. However it never was used even though the microwaves had problems. In addition the T1 was under the control of a totally different communication department that once turned it off to see what happens as a test to find a way to save money.
Also the entire network had another sub domain that was nearer the academic end of the buildings. They for some power struggle reason wanted their own network early on in their control. Then their was a separate network for the University's campus the hospital was on. In fact our network was attached to the rest of the world thru it via a router we never saw or had any control over. So our traffic went thru another network subject to their router config and limitations etc. Various parts of our network extended into areas like support for the communications (phone switch guys) and into academic campus network area. Various campus connections went over into our area.
They had no idea where most of their IP addresses were. Their documentation was scarce. The hospital was built piece meal piece by piece a building was added. So was the network. The older areas built with cat 3 and phone jumper blocks. The oldest was still on coax. I would visit offices and they expected me to fix a printer they had sitting there brand new for 2 years uninstalled. The reality was there was thousands of IP addresses they couldn't account for where or what was on it. I once killed a cat 3 connection just toning it.
Can you imagine attempting to document all of that and where it goes thru various subclosets and jumpers.
There was dumb terminals connected to a VAX and some other minis, and UNIX PCs and x terminals, and samba, NT 4 and mac's. old 386's using dos and 3.11 connected via weird programs such as wall data.
An excellent instructor I once had that used that book I mentioned before once stated if they don't have a map leave. There was no map here let alone much understanding of where any wires went. Newer sections sure had better documentation and newer equipment.
Generally real world businesses upgrade faster than government or publicly funded institutions. But understand many existing networks were created over time starting with orange garden hose and some token ring with a mux (hub) could even be found here/ already ripped out.
IPs with a mini hub some office installed due to instant need sharing the connection.
MY point is this was a mess and many are built that way with no or little planning. In order to find where a specific fiber lead went too they had to find the guy who installed it. Fiber went from main closet to other sub closet hubs.
Here I will attempt to explain another issue. Lets say a really large thing manufacturer comes up with a similar problem. This is true company and they had various versions of cabling. They were installing full duplex back in that day for 10mb on cat 5. And from what I have been told they had plenty of closets that were a mess of wires.
Too many users and not enough documentation. There fix is a program called blue written by their ivory tower coders who are soon to be out of work by East Indian coders.
anyway Blue lets say is a program that is installed on every pc via the network every time a new IP connection/ or MAC address is booted. Blue asks for the name and location and purpose of PC or device. But lets say the ivory tower people decide to upgrade blue to a newer version. They are great at coding and make it so blue 4 instantly upgrades all PCs with blue 3 on it.
In other words blue has self upgrade capability.
The coders are very good at this yet they lack direction or understanding of network performance issues and install the upgrade application of blue on one server within the company. Ultimately they start the upgrade process in their ivory tower and walk away from it as it starts to work. 4 hours later as people arrive and boot their PCs the entire company's network becomes clogged with download requests from blue 3 for blue 4.
This did actually happen. It wouldn't have mattered what speed connection you have if there is an application on everyone's PC requesting an update. Sort of a self styled ivory tower DoS attack.
So in the real world not everything has been engineered or financially planned with some perfect oversight. Jerry Stead a CEO of several large companies including AT&T found it was not a fun job as the company was so big with so many directions that it was extremely difficult to get a handle on. Many networks have been built and exist like that.
But perhaps none of this belongs here in this forum.
Perhaps the thread's creator only meant his home network.
Look around you how many of you have an older pc with ISA slots and 10 meg card in it sitting in corner. In the real world it may actually be used, with x terminals and dumb terminals and macs and sun SPARC stations..... | |
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Bill1440
join:2004-03-24
Birmingham, AL
| Home gigabit - one more time? There seems to be some disagreement over the usefulness of a gigabit switch at home. Here is what I have at home: three computers that save pictures/videos/songs to a main computer (AMD 3000+, 400fsb, 1 gig memory) and then access them from the main computer; a multimedia box attached to the stereo receiver/tv for playing songs/videos from the main computer; internet through a router. The main reason I thought I might need a gig switch is that the videos are often botched on the multimedia box (but I believe that its NIC is only 100mb anyway) and the three computers cannot access the pictures/songs/videos as quickly as I might want. Sorry for the length of this post; any thoughts? Thanks. | |
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