[Server-devel] Is a USB-Ethernet NIC appropriate for the XS?

[Martin Langhoff]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan at olenepal.org> wrote:
> We want to use the MSI Wind PC for the XS but it has one big problem. It
> only has 1 on-board NIC and no PCI slots. As you know, the XS requires 2
> NIC's. We have tried several different USB NIC's and are having serious
> throughput problems. Is this issue one w/ the NIC or the fact that it is
> connected by USB?

My main worry with USB-connected NICs would be reliability. If the NIC
is reliable, but the throughput a bit below-par, you can still
probably use it as the WAN NIC -- the throughput is likely to be
constrained upstream anyway.

 - When you say throughput problems... what are you getting? How bad
is it? Even if limited, would it be appropriate for the WAN port?

 - The problem may be specific to the driver or NIC hardware -- is
there any discussion on the kernel dev list about it?

 - The problem may be with the USB bus on the MS Wind, hardware or
drivers. Perhaps testing for bus throughput or interrupt handling
helps?

 - Have you tested the reliability of the devices? This may be a larger problem.

cheers,


martin
-- 
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