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Hi all,

I'm thinking of upgrading my home network to GBE (currently it's
100 base T). Half of my important machines already have built GBE
interfaces, but two of them don't so I need to get a couple of GBE
NICs. If I had the $$$ I'd just get a pair of Sun Gigaswift UTPs,
but I don't so I'm open to alternatives. Can anyone recommend a
suitable NIC to me? The card MUST be supported by Solaris 10 (and
preferably Solaris 9), and must support network booting. Support
for SPARC is essential (the machines I'm looking at upgrading are
a Sun Blade 1000 and an E220R); support for x86 is desirable but
not mandatory.

TIA,

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

HI,

Rich Teer wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm thinking of upgrading my home network to GBE (currently it's
> 100 base T). Half of my important machines already have built GBE
> interfaces, but two of them don't so I need to get a couple of GBE
> NICs. If I had the $$$ I'd just get a pair of Sun Gigaswift UTPs,
> but I don't so I'm open to alternatives. Can anyone recommend a
> suitable NIC to me? The card MUST be supported by Solaris 10 (and
> preferably Solaris 9), and must support network booting. Support
> for SPARC is essential (the machines I'm looking at upgrading are
> a Sun Blade 1000 and an E220R); support for x86 is desirable but
> not mandatory.
>
> TIA,
>
Can't answer your question but I guess that support for a good GbE NIC
is hard to find, broadcom perhaps but not cheap!

But, why not install a second 100Mb NIC instead, what are you expecting
to gain with GbE? I suspect that a E220R will only give you ~400-500
Mb/s anyway at full load and then you have the disks!

You could put the servers on a server backbone instead!

/michael

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Michael Laajanen wrote:

> Can't answer your question but I guess that support for a good GbE NIC is hard
> to find, broadcom perhaps but not cheap!

True; I might end up replacing the E220R if that is the cheaper option.
Two things holding me back on that one though:

1. I use a D1000 for my storage, so support for my Differential SCSI
HBA is required.

2. I currently use a Sun PCi IIpro in the E220R, so the new server
would ideally support that. AT least until we have Windoze Brandz
support!

> But, why not install a second 100Mb NIC instead, what are you expecting to
> gain with GbE? I suspect that a E220R will only give you ~400-500 Mb/s anyway
> at full load and then you have the disks!

True, but GBE seems to be the easier option.

> You could put the servers on a server backbone instead!

Yeah, but then I'd be limited to cable modem speeds!

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:57:17 GMT, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:

> I'm thinking of upgrading my home network to GBE (currently it's
> 100 base T). Half of my important machines already have built GBE
> interfaces, but two of them don't so I need to get a couple of GBE
> NICs. If I had the $$$ I'd just get a pair of Sun Gigaswift UTPs,
> but I don't so I'm open to alternatives. Can anyone recommend a
> suitable NIC to me? The card MUST be supported by Solaris 10 (and
> preferably Solaris 9), and must support network booting. Support
> for SPARC is essential (the machines I'm looking at upgrading are
> a Sun Blade 1000 and an E220R); support for x86 is desirable but
> not mandatory.

Hello Rich,

While this does not meet your requirements exactly, I've picked up
several SysKonnect SK-9821 cards at a good price (less than $30/piece
off eBay) and they work well, support UTP, and are 64bit/66mhz. I'm
using them in several Enterprise x500 machines with the PCI I/O board.
I know the drivers work fine with Solaris 9 and 10, and they do
support x86 as well.

I don't see how you are going to find any card that has a Sun OBP to
support network booting on it that also is going to work in a x86 system
as I would think it would have to have different ROMs.

That said, I just boot the systems off the hme port when needed and use
the 9821s for everything else.

Brian

Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> writes:

>I'm thinking of upgrading my home network to GBE (currently it's
>100 base T). Half of my important machines already have built GBE
>interfaces, but two of them don't so I need to get a couple of GBE
>NICs. If I had the $$$ I'd just get a pair of Sun Gigaswift UTPs,
>but I don't so I'm open to alternatives. Can anyone recommend a
>suitable NIC to me? The card MUST be supported by Solaris 10 (and
>preferably Solaris 9), and must support network booting. Support
>for SPARC is essential (the machines I'm looking at upgrading are
>a Sun Blade 1000 and an E220R); support for x86 is desirable but
>not mandatory.


Good luck finding a *bootable* GigE card for SPARC without a Sun brand.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Brian McCrary wrote:

> While this does not meet your requirements exactly, I've picked up
> several SysKonnect SK-9821 cards at a good price (less than $30/piece
> off eBay) and they work well, support UTP, and are 64bit/66mhz. I'm
> using them in several Enterprise x500 machines with the PCI I/O board.
> I know the drivers work fine with Solaris 9 and 10, and they do
> support x86 as well.

Ah yes, the skge drivers. I was thinking of those, but couldn't remember
what they were called. What about the Intel GBE card?

> I don't see how you are going to find any card that has a Sun OBP to
> support network booting on it that also is going to work in a x86 system
> as I would think it would have to have different ROMs.

Good point. That's not too much of a problwm here as all my x86 machines
have built in GBE.

> That said, I just boot the systems off the hme port when needed and use
> the 9821s for everything else.

That's the situation I'm trying to avoid. :-) My SB1K is a bit tricky
to get to, so short of connecting both interfaces to the same switch,
installing would be a PITA.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

HI,

Rich Teer wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Michael Laajanen wrote:
>
>
>>Can't answer your question but I guess that support for a good GbE NIC is hard
>>to find, broadcom perhaps but not cheap!
>
>
> True; I might end up replacing the E220R if that is the cheaper option.
That sounds very drastic, GbE is not that fantastic!

> Two things holding me back on that one though:
>
> 1. I use a D1000 for my storage, so support for my Differential SCSI
> HBA is required.
>
> 2. I currently use a Sun PCi IIpro in the E220R, so the new server
> would ideally support that. AT least until we have Windoze Brandz
> support!
>
>
>>But, why not install a second 100Mb NIC instead, what are you expecting to
>>gain with GbE? I suspect that a E220R will only give you ~400-500 Mb/s anyway
>>at full load and then you have the disks!
>
>
> True, but GBE seems to be the easier option.
>
>
>>You could put the servers on a server backbone instead!
>
>
> Yeah, but then I'd be limited to cable modem speeds!
>
Hmm, I am lost there, what has vable modem to do with a separate
backbone between your servers! You still shold keep the network
currently in use only offload that with all server-server comm!

Bring up a few Sunrays and you are fine with 100Mb/s to your rooms, no
noise everbody loves it!

/michael

In article <Pine.SOL.4.64.0601311120570.3633@marrakesh>,
Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
>what they were called. What about the Intel GBE card?

<URL:http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dp?entry=what_s_new_in_solaris10>

Not sure if e1000g(7D) for SPARC made S10 Update 1.
I don't see it in the What's New section of the release notes.
<URL:http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-0547/6mgbdbsmb?a=view>

John
groenveld@acm.org

HI,

Rich Teer wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Brian McCrary wrote:
>
<sniP>

>
> Ah yes, the skge drivers. I was thinking of those, but couldn't remember
> what they were called. What about the Intel GBE card?
>
>
>>I don't see how you are going to find any card that has a Sun OBP to
>>support network booting on it that also is going to work in a x86 system
>>as I would think it would have to have different ROMs.
>
>
C'mon, Intel you are yoking

Have I ever mentioned when I was working for a huge company(the biggest
in its domain) and was about to design a GbE adapter(at that time there
where only two out, Sun and Alteon). Intel just bought Level One which
has a GbE chip ready and stopped it, Intel had their first chip 82543
out and we ask for drivers, fine they said after a few weeks they came
back and said that where not allowed to supply drivers to non Intel
arch, any OS aslong as it was a x86, they even had for Solaris x86 then
and Linux but now Alpha or Sparc.

So much for "we are in the network group not the CPU group"!

/michael

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:25:23 GMT, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:

> Ah yes, the skge drivers. I was thinking of those, but couldn't remember
> what they were called. What about the Intel GBE card?

I never could find any Intel cards that supported SPARC when I was
looking around, in fact the skge drivers were the only ones I could find
that had halfway decent priced cards to go along with them! I was
curious and checked Intel's site again just now, but it still looks like
they only have x86 drivers for the PRO/1000 line.

> That's the situation I'm trying to avoid. :-) My SB1K is a bit tricky
> to get to, so short of connecting both interfaces to the same switch,
> installing would be a PITA.

Ah, well, I just hung on to the old 100mbit switch I had and uplinked it
to the GigE. That way, all my servers just use one more of it's limited
number of ports, so it's not too bad, as long as you don't mind more
cables running all over the place.

Brian