From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Apr 11 23:36:05 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 50573106564A for ; Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:36:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ari@ish.com.au) Received: from fish.ish.com.au (eth5921.nsw.adsl.internode.on.net [59.167.240.32]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DD5C8FC14 for ; Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:36:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ari@ish.com.au) Received: from delish.ish.com.au ([203.29.62.201] helo=ish.com.au) by fish.ish.com.au with esmtps (SSLv3:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.43) id 1JkSGV-0007Hd-UB for freebsd-performance@freebsd.org; Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:02:39 +1000 Received: from [10.29.62.13] ([10.29.62.13] verified) by ish.com.au (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.1) with ESMTP id 3431538; Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:08:14 +1000 Message-Id: <5873E91C-C096-4EE1-A5F5-4BCE110E2EE7@ish.com.au> From: Aristedes Maniatis To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:08:13 +1000 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2) Subject: 10GbE speeds X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:36:05 -0000 I have a project with 3 workstations all needing high speed access to about 6Tb of storage. In the past I've installed technology such as fibre channel connected SAN storage (using Apple's xsan) for up to a dozen workstations, but with only three workstations for this project I'm thinking about 10GbE. The workstations will be OSX and the server FreeBSD 7 with a bunch of disks in a RAID 5 or RAID 10 configuration. Are 10GbE NICs and drivers significantly mature enough under FreeBSD to accomplish this? I'd need to achieve about 60MB/s transfer rate which is theoretically quite doable, as long as the drive array can keep up with three streams of that speed. I'd use netatalk, samba or nfs to share files depending on which I can eek the best speeds out of. Alternatively I could populate the server with 1GbE NICs, one per workstation and use cross over cable. That way there is absolutely no contention on the network. Any thoughts about the viability of this? Is 10GbE in production use with FreeBSD and does it scale well? Cheers Ari Maniatis --------------------------> ish http://www.ish.com.au Level 1, 30 Wilson Street Newtown 2042 Australia phone +61 2 9550 5001 fax +61 2 9550 4001 GPG fingerprint CBFB 84B4 738D 4E87 5E5C 5EFA EF6A 7D2E 3E49 102A