[Beowulf] Cluster Networking

[Gerry Creager]

Mark Hahn wrote:
>>> 1. Is there any influence on performance of a NFS-server from the
>> usage
>>> of x32 CPU and OS instead of x64, if all other characteristics of the
> 
> 64bitness is, at this level, purely a matter of register width, number and
> address-space size.  it might very well be that an NFS server would show 
> an advantage to 64b if configured with a very large pagecache and a read
> friendly workload.
> 
>>> system, i.e. amount of RAM, soft-SATA-II RAID 0, Realtek GLAN NIC are
>>> the same?
>>
>> I would say no - but I don't run any 32 bit machines as NFS servers!
> 
> I can't think of any reason to prefer 64b for NFS servers, except that 
> 32b-only machines tend to be older (and thus limited in memory and IO 
> bandwidth).
> 
>> Being even more honest, I would look at this Realtek NIC and consider
>> putting in
>> An Intel E1000 based card. Also look closely at network tuning
> 
> I'd be pretty surprised if any Gb nic couldn't manage wire speed.

Then you haven't had my horrible experience with Broadcom 5708's.
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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