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PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:29 pm 
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Joined: Wed Dec 10, 2003 8:31 pm
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-Found the switch I want (netgear GS108) which supports 9k jumbo frames
-Found the NICs

Problem is (and you can read the review here) that in order to get out to the WAN, the router must be able to handle jumbo frames as well. Mine doesn't. This is starting to get expensive... new switch 90 bucks, 30 bucks a pop for NICs, and now the need for a new router. Think I'll have to shitcan this whole idea.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:34 am 
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Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Balderdash and poppycock! The jumbo frames are only used between consenting NICs, apparently. I have jumbo frames enabled on my system, and my router (and the internet in general) definitely do NOT respond to jumbo frames. Or maybe my Intel driver is lying to me and not using jumbo frames at all. It doesn't matter because it's still faster than stink!

It really isn't all that hard, graysky, honest! I just closed my eyes, plugged it all in, and presto, 1000M bps. But not to the internet, of course. Yet.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:12 am 
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Liv2Cod wrote:
But not to the internet, of course. Yet.
Don't we both wish...


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:43 am 
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I'd even take 100 to the Internet... heck, I'd even take 10. :D

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:49 pm 
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Liv2Cod wrote:
The jumbo frames are only used between consenting NICs, apparently.

I don't think that's true... read this review: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Reviews-2 ... -GS108.php

In the review at that URL, the author, Tim Higgins wrote:
Note, however, that once you enable jumbo frames, everything that computer communicates with on your LAN also must support jumbo frames. In addition, everything needs to be set to use the same size jumbo frame.

You'll know right away if you try to use a jumbo frame-enabled PC with non-jumbo frame gear. For example, everything worked fine when I network-browsed over to another jumbo frame-enabled PC. But when I tried to web browse, I got very slow page loads and sometimes none at all. This was because my router's 10/100 Ethernet switch that I had the GS108 uplinked to couldn't properly deal with the jumbo-sized data packets I was sending.


I actually just got off the phone with a pre-sales tech from 1-888-NETGEAR; the guy flat out told me jumbo frames wouldn't work with my setup: if the NICs are using jumbo frames, they are enabled globally in the switch. Therefore, all frames, switch-to-NIC or switch-to-router will be jumbo. He went on to explain that setup would function without using jumbo frames despite the fact that they are enabled in the NIC's driver. Apperantly, the switch will detect the conflict and default back to a 1500 frame size.

The really funny part came at the end of the conversation, when the guy suggested that, I use a layer 3 managed switch, like netgear part number GSM7312 which retails for $1,400! This is getting pricey!

Bottom line is no jumbo frames :(

EDIT on 10-Dec-2008: I was totally incorrect about this and have corrected it in the next post.

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Last edited by graysky on Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:55 pm 
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Hate to resurrect a three year old thread, but I wanted to clear-up some misconceptions on my part:

1) You can absolutely use jumbo frames and still get fast internet downloads.

2) 9k jumbo frames are not always fastest. I my setup, 4k frames give better results. You just have to do some tests moving files to see.

3) Samba for me is faster than NFS, but I believe the best way to benchmark file xfers is by using scp. It will also report the througput of the xfer in Mb/s which is nice. Usage of scp:

Code:
 $ scp mythtv@192.168.1.2:/myth/video/KnoppmythR5.5.iso /home/mythtv


That will copy the KM iso from the source machine (192.168.1.2 in this case) using user mythtv over to my current machine's /home/mythtv dir.

What I've found is that you cannot copy the same file over and over again even if you delete it on the target end. There must be some sort of buffer at work. You'll wanna have a number of different copies of it on the machines with different names, or a number of different files of approximately equal size.

That's it!

For those interested, here is my network setup:

Cable modem <---> 10/100 router/firewall <---> GigaLan switch that supports up to 9k jumbo frames ---> PC's

I believe there are a number of unmanaged switches that'll do jumbo frames. I have an netgear gs108, but I'm sure there are others.

From modem to router, the frame size is 'normal' and untouched. Everything behind the switch on the other hand is talking to each other via 4k frames. Some how, it knows to step down to standard MTU size when going from the switch to the router and out to the WAN. I can get blazing fast download speeds with this setup; they don't change when I drop down to 'normal' frames either.

Here is the howto I wrote to go about enabling jumbo frames on your network btw.

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