<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Peter,<div>I too have set up some Xserves here using aggregation.</div><div>I used SmallTree Nics to achieve this about 2 years ago. (2 x 2 port, and 1 x 4 port)</div><div><br></div><div>First of all, let me say:</div><div>A single SATA 7.2K rpm drive will starve even a single Gigabit connection so go stripe some drives within those MacPros if you haven't done so already.</div><div><br></div><div>Okay. What you are seeing is normal.</div><div>The bond interface will only utilise the additional copper when the server receives additional requests. a.k.a high load...</div><div><br></div><div>This means that:</div><div>You will not see an increase in speed with only a single machine accessing the server, but rather you'll notice the bond interface being utilised once additional server requests come in.</div><div><br></div><div>So, I guess you could say that you'll only notice the same transfer speeds when the server is under considerable load: and therefore <i>maintaining </i>an optimal transfer speed for you.</div><div><br></div><div>If you have spare Nics lying around, you can simply use these, (with a different IP though) as AFP, like Apache, is set to listen on all interfaces by default.</div><div><br></div><div>Once you start playing around with bond interfaces, you quickly appreciate RAID 50, as drive spindle speed soon becomes your new bottleneck. both on your clients as well as your servers. </div><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div> <br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">Raoul Callaghan</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">I.T. Manager</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">111 Barry Street</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">The University of Melbourne</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">Victoria 3010 Australia</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">p: 03 8344 1783</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">f:</span></span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; "> </span></span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">03 9349 4106</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; ">e: <a href="mailto:raoul@amsi.org.au">raoul@amsi.org.au</a></span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; "> </span></span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; "><i style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; ">Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.</span></i></span></font></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br><div><html>On 01/04/2008, at 6:39 PM, Peter Thomas wrote:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div> <font face="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size:12.0px">Dear All,<br> <br> I have just installed a new gigabit Cisco switch to upgrade network speed in my teaching labs and studios. The switch has some ports configured to allow for aggregating or trunking ethernet cards on my servers and some of my Mac Pro studio computers to provide faster transfer of large files and faster image deployment. (Also maybe play with Final Cut distributed rendering).<br> <br> I have aggregated, (bonded) the two network ports on a Mac Pro tower and done some rudimentary speed tests on this and another identical computer that is configured to only use one network port.<br> <br> My test basically was to copy the same 2 gig file across the network from our server on both computers simultaneously and time them – expecting the computer with the aggregated network ports to be twice as fast – not so IDENTICAL <br> <br> I also copied the files back from the two machines back to the Server – again expecting the computer with the aggregated network ports to be twice as fast – not so IDENTICAL<br> <br> So how would I test whether I am achieving faster network throughput, on the aggregated machine, is my test invalid or is something wrong with switch or computer setup ?<br> <br> Thanks<br> <br> <br> Peter Thomas<br> <br> Information Technologies Facilities Manager<br> Conservatorium of Music<br> University of Sydney<br> <br> </span></font> </div> _______________________________________________<br>unimactech mailing list<br><a href="mailto:unimactech@auc.edu.au">unimactech@auc.edu.au</a><br>http://www.auc.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/unimactech<br></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>