[ale] Network Performance Gurus - Question about Ubuntu basedNAS

[Jim Kinney]

My bad. The original link to the qnap didn't work (session id crap, I
guess). I grabbed the NAS device on the page I _did_ get and it was not
the same gizmo.

On Thu, 2008-10-30 at 12:56 -0500, Shane McKinley wrote:
> I use jumbo frames on my iSCSI openfiler system (9000MTU) and I can max
> out 1Gb. This is a quadcore system w/ 4GB RAM.
> 
> Shane 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Freemyer [mailto:greg.freemyer at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:53 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] Network Performance Gurus - Question about Ubuntu
> basedNAS
> 
> Jim,
> 
> Per the spec, it has 2 NICs.
> 
> And per the review:
> 
> The two gigabit Ethernet ports are provided by two Broadcom BCM5787
> NetLink Gigabit Ethernet Controllers with PCI Express. Those last two
> words are encouraging, since a PCI Express interface should provide more
> bandwidth headroom for gigabit network transfers. But I was disappointed
> to find that QNAP has chosen to not enable jumbo frame support in the
> 509 Pro!
> ...
> QNAP responded that the Broadcom BCM5787 does not support jumbo frames.
> But they chose it because it had the best throughput of the chipsets
> they evaluated.
> 
> Greg
> 
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 87MB/s is the theoretical MAX for TCP using normal frame sizes. By 
> > using jumbo frames more data per packet is transferred (i.e. lower 
> > framing overhead).
> >
> > The 802.3ad load balancing data shows there is some poor network 
> > performance in the device. With a single client connection to a bonded
> 
> > dual server it was possible to max out the client line. HOWEVER! A 
> > look at the hardware shows the server has a single NIC so it must have
> 
> > been the CLIENT causing the bottleneck.
> >
> > So the 802.3ad data sounds suspicious to me as the server only has a 
> > single 1Gbit NIC.
> >
> > On Thu, 2008-10-30 at 13:07 -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> >> Network Guru,
> >>
> >> I've done lots of work with 100 Mbit, but not much performance 
> >> testing with 1Gbit/sec Ethernet.
> >>
> >> I'm looking at the QNAP TS509 NAS unit (reviewed at 
> >> http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30549/75/1/1/).
> >>
> >> It is running Ubuntu internally (customized I'm sure).
> >>
> >> Per the last page of the review, it shows max. read throughput at 
> >> about 56 MB/sec. (via what client?)
> >>
> >> But one gets the impression, that it is the Ethenet link that is 
> >> limiting the speed, not the disks/CPU.
> >>
> >> And from the post 
> >> http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=492
> >>
> >> One reads that load balancing via LACL (802.3ad) allowed at least one
> >> TS509 user to get 87 MB/sec with a single client workstation.
> >>
> >> And with two clients, the user is claiming 62 MB/sec per client
> simultaneously.
> >>
> >> == questions
> >>
> >> 1) With a single socket, does 1 Gigabit ethernet tend to max out at 
> >> only 60MB/sec or so?  Or is that more likely a limitation of a 
> >> Windows client PC?
> >>
> >> 2) If I get a LACL (802.3ad) compliant switch, do I just need 2 cat5 
> >> cables from it to my NAS and my client machines get accelerated via a
> 
> >> single gigabit connection?  Is the answer OS dependent?
> >>
> >> 3.1) In particular, I have a Fedora box I want to connect and get as 
> >> much throughput to/from the NAS as possible.  Will I also need to 
> >> implement load-balancing on it via LACL?
> >>
> >> 3.2) And what about XP?  Vista?
> >>
> >> 4) For my Fedora box, do any of the performance tests even mean 
> >> anything for this NAS, since they were testing via Windows clients.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >
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> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Greg Freemyer
> Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
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