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From: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: Farallon StarController restictions
Message-ID: <42382@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 11 Jan 91 02:04:46 GMT
References: <10299@pogo.WV.TEK.COM>
Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp
Reply-To: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
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Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
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In article <10299@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) writes:

>We are in the process of planning the installation of some Farralon PhoneNET
>StarControllers to relieve some overloaded net problems.  For each of the 12
>ports on a single controller, there are 4 "branches" each of which can have
>up to 750 feet of cabling.  Farralon technical support says that they
>recommend and support only one device (Mac, printer, whatever) per branch. 
>Given that each port is electrically isolated from the others, this seems
>extremely conservative.

I'm sure that the fact that they'll make serious $ by selling one SC per 12
devices doesn't enter the picture at all.  (Actually, they want to sell 1 per
11, with the 12th port used to connect to the next SC.  "How conveeeenient.")

Seriously, IMO, you can hang as many devices off the SC as you want, keeping in
mind bandwidth limitations.  In what way do you plan on using the SC to relieve
net "overload"?  The SC is basically just a big, fancy repeater.  If you are
having traffic problems you need to look into a bridge. 

>Hence my question:  Have any of you installed this controller and what do you
>find are the *practical* limits on devices per branch?

I have 1 SC on a net with 35-odd Macs, 1 PC, 4 LaserWriters, and 3 AppleTalked
ImageWriter IIs.  There is one AppleShare server on a Mac Plus that two Pluses
using 4th Dimension are grabbing a 15 meg datebase in multiuser mode from.  All
this works pretty well.  In the 2-3 years I've had this setup running, I've had
to use the StarCommand softare *twice* to shut down a leg.

I'd guess 6-8 devices per port would be a fair rule of thumb upper limit.  
This is an average.  It wouldn't bother me much to hang a dozen off a leg if
I needed to for some reason.