Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!yarra!bacchus!david From: david@bacchus.esa.oz.au (David Burren [Athos]) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: NFS vs communications meduim (was slashes, then NFS devices) Message-ID: <2042@bacchus.esa.oz.au> Date: 18 Mar 91 23:10:18 GMT Article-I.D.: bacchus.2042 References: <1991Mar9.170841.4042@panix.uucp> <11030@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <2028@bacchus.esa.oz.au> Organization: Expert Solutions Australia Lines: 32 In <2028@bacchus.esa.oz.au> I wrote: >In <11030@dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek@elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes: >>The bandwidth of your standard, boring old Ethernet is 10 Mb/s or 1.2 >>MB/s. >Say what? If you can get over 1 Mb/s out of an Ethernet I'd like to hear >about it. Bruce Barnett @ GE kindly sent me a copy of a posting to comp.protocols.tcp-ip by Van Jacobson in October 1988. In it he described tests using Sun-3s with two types of Ethernet controller: a Lance and an i82586. The LANCE came out best, with throughputs up to 1000 kbytes/sec, while the Intel part peaked out at 720 kbytes/sec. I stand corrected in what Ethernet can do :-) Mind you, unfortunately I suspect that this optimised code is still absent in many shipped systems. I do not know if the Sonys here incorporate the Van Jacobson TCP. So, Ethernet being capable (depending on controller and software) of sustaining throughputs similar to modern asynch SCSI-1 setups, we're back to the distinct performance difference between local disks and NFS. Eg. in my previous posting: fs performance (block reads) on: SCSI 600 kb/s NFS 270 kb/s Not that I've added all that much to the discussion :-( Back to the experts... - David B.