[ale] Network Performance Gurus - Question about Ubuntu based NAS

Greg Freemyer greg.freemyer at gmail.com
Fri Oct 31 10:56:56 EDT 2008


Thanks Jim,

Its just gets more and more confusing.

I found that NetGear has a very reasonably priced "Smart" series of
switches (semi-managed) that show "manual 802.3ad support".  I'm only
going to have a few machines with it, so manual support should be
fine.

FYI: A 1Gbit 24-port NetGear Smart switch is $299 retail

Greg

2008/10/31 Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com>:
> So far, all the switches I've seen that support 802.3ad ALSO have
> management. There is a protocol in nic bonding that provides for automatic
> switch detection of bonded lines but I have not used it.
>
> The short answer is yes, you will need to manually setup which ports are the
> bonded ports on the switch. However, there are bonding protocols that don't
> require a special switch mode. Modes 5 and 6 don't require a switch with
> 802.3ad.
>
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> >From what I think I hearing / reading:
>>
>> The NAS could have 2 Gbit NICs connected to a switch and in turn that
>> switch could be connected to a single NIC on a client machine.
>>
>> At that point the single NIC becomes the bottleneck, but if it is a
>> good NIC it should be able to run faster than 60MB/sec.
>>
>> But if the PC has 2 NICs, they two could be connected in a bonded mode
>> (ie 802.3ad) and possibly run even faster.
>>
>> ==> Question:  Then do all relatively new gigabit switches support
>> 802.3ad bonding, or do I need to get a managed one, etc?
>>
>> If a managed one is required, do I have to manually setup the ports to
>> do bonding, or is it automatic once it is enabled for the whole
>> switch?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Greg
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>
>> 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
>> > --
>> > Greg Freemyer
>> > Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
>> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
>> > First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
>> >
>> > http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf
>> >
>> > The Norcross Group
>> > The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
>> > http://www.norcrossgroup.com
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Greg Freemyer
>> Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
>> First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
>> http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf
>>
>> The Norcross Group
>> The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
>> http://www.norcrossgroup.com
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>
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
>
>
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>



-- 
Greg Freemyer
Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf

The Norcross Group
The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
http://www.norcrossgroup.com


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