[Info-vax] DE500 and hardware version

[Paul Sture]

In article 
<b2b91b4c-a59e-4db0-9b9b-0be38ec9248f at bx10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
 John Wallace <johnwallace4 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 4, 12:59 pm, Paul Sture <nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
> > In article <kc6gav$25... at online.de>,
> >  hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply)
> >
> >  wrote:
> > > In article <nospam-82F7A9.12110404012... at news.chingola.ch>, Paul Sture
> > > <nos... at sture.ch> writes:
> >
> > > > I was looking to upgrade my home network to Gigabit ethernet just over a
> > > > year ago and was surprised how much kit in the marketplace was still
> > > > 10/100.  Basically unless Gigabit or 1000 was somewhere in the product
> > > > name or prominent in the description, 10/100 was what you would be
> > > > getting.
> >
> > > Well, consider that the typical home user doesn't run a LAN-based VMS
> > > cluster.  :-|
> >
> > Not a VMS cluster, but every PC sold in the last few years (3-4 years?)
> > has come with GbE, and there are a lot of NAS and media streaming
> > devices on the market.
> >
> > > Most DSL connections are not more than 16 Mb/s, and most
> > > people essentially connect one device to the internet.
> >
> > My cable company currently offers up to 100,000 Kbit/s down, 7,000
> > Kbit/s up:
> >
> > http://www.upc-cablecom.ch/en/b2c/internet.htm
> >
> > and see the TV/internet/phone packages here:
> >
> > http://www.upc-cablecom.ch/en/b2c/kombiangebote.htm
> >
> > The "Top Deal" there is very little more than my current cost for a
> > 25,000 Kbit/s internet and digital TV package.  In essence I would get a
> > 4 times speed boost plus free telephone calls to land lines in
> > Switzerland.
> >
> > > So, the
> > > bottleneck is the WAN connection; 100 Mb/s on the LAN is thus more than
> > > enough.  For people with several devices on the LAN who also transfer
> > > big files between them then, yes, Gb/s at home would make sense.
> >
> > Back to NAS and media streaming, though many folks will use wireless
> > networking instead.
> >
> > > I picked up an old, big (32-port), 10/100, originally quite expensive
> > > switch a few years ago when to replace the 10 MB/S hub I had been using.
> > > It died a couple of years later and I bought a new NetGear 10/100/1000
> > > switch for EUR 30 or whatever.  Seems to work fine.  Apart from my 3
> > > (sometimes 4 when I boot the satellite upstairs) nodes in my VMS cluster
> > > there is an access point which my wife uses for her iPad.  IIRC the WLAN
> > > speed is a few hundred MB/s but, again, the main bottleneck is the DSL
> > > connection.  Connections between the iPad and the VMS cluster are
> > > limited, though my wife does use the VT220 app to check email on the VMS
> > > cluster.  :-)  Since she can't type at 100 MB/s, we really don't need
> > > much more speed between iPad and VMS.
> >
> > Understood, but a lot of GbE capable kit is already out there.  It seems
> > a shame to cripple it with 10/100 routers and switches.
> 
> My x86 kit at home mostly has GbE these days. I used to think I wanted
> to use the LAN for backups, e.g. to shift big backup images around. So
> I bought a SoHo GbE switch and tried it. No noticeable improvement
> over 100Mbit in terms of shifting big files round. In due course I
> acquired another (different vendor) SoHo GbE switch and tried again.
> Same result - something other than NIC speed is limiting the speed of
> shifting files around. I'm assuming that the limiting factor in my
> setup is hard drive write performance.

I did see a dramatic performance increase shifting large files around 
when I upgraded to a GbE router.

> These days, I'm using USB-connected disk drives to do my backups,
> moving the external disk to where the data is, rather than relying on
> the LAN. Which is OK in my circumstances but not a general solution.

I had a problem moving USB drives around at one point.  I believe I have 
nailed the problem now, but one system in particular would change its 
boot order when adding or removing USB drives, which of course I 
wouldn't notice until the next reboot.

> If there really is Gigabit-speed wireless around that can genuinely
> deliver genuine Gigabit-class performance, I'll be pleasantly
> surprised. These things may allegedly deliver GbE-like performance on
> a good day with a following wind and decent signal quality, but the
> 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi bands are no longer free of noise pollution, and
> it's only going to get worse as time goes by.

I am sceptical about performance here too.  OK tghus goes back to 2003, 
but the Wiki entry for 802-11g:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#802.11g

"This works in the 2.4 GHz band (like 802.11b), but uses the same OFDM 
based transmission scheme as 802.11a. It operates at a maximum physical 
layer bit rate of 54 Mbit/s exclusive of forward error correction codes, 
or about 22 Mbit/s average throughput.[12] 802.11g hardware is fully 
backward compatible with 802.11b hardware and therefore is encumbered 
with legacy issues that reduce throughput when compared to 802.11a by 
~21%."

-- 
Paul Sture