Theoretical Samba File Server

[D. Hageman]

On Sun, 28 Oct 2001, Gerald Combs wrote:

> If you're concerned about the network being a bottleneck, why not use Fast
> EtherChannel or gigabit ethernet?  Fast EtherChannel lets you bond up to
> four 100 Mbps ethernet connections.  Its configuration is described in
> Documentation/networking/bonding.txt in your kernel source tree.  GigE
> cards can be had for less than $200 these days (copper and fiber).
> 

I was having a discussion about adding multiple network cards to mitigate 
network bandwidths the other day with an associate of mine.  The final 
conclusion with cheap intel hardware that the overall bus might be a 
limiting factor then the amount of data you can pump out over a network 
connection.  Think about it ... processing time - drive seek - drive - 
read - send across bus to network devices...  * the number of network 
cards you have ... even taking in account of DMA we questioned the 
benefits of adding more network devices.    

Our conclusion could be wrong.  Feedback is appreciated.

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||  D. Hageman                    <dhageman at dracken.com>  ||
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