I'd like to get your recommendation on the best 100Mbps network card that's able to handle a very high traffics without causing any bottleneck. A NIC that can handle up to 75 Mbps of traffics would be nice.

One of my servers is currently pushing nearly 40 Mbps and the current NIC (3COM 3C905) seems unable to handle it (having packet loss and significant performance drop). The provider suggested to replace the NIC with a better one, possible 3COM 3C950 (is it really better?).

Please let me know your preference for high-end network card. Many thanks!

Yes 3COM 3C950 would be better :)

Any other options?

Do you have a price budget?

We use Intel Pro 10/100 cards and they push 50-65 Mbps pretty easily.

What is your price range?

~Larry

Anything below $300 would be nice.

How much is Intel Pro 10/100 and 3COM 3C950? Which one would be a better choice?

There aint a great deal between the 3COM's and the INTEL's tbh, we use Intel's in all our servers, u could look at something along the lines of a intel server adaptor (does some of the processing on a hardware level instead od software level) these will come under ur price tag,

some thing along this line should do u

http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/pro100s_srvr_adapter.htm

Thanks for all the feedback.

I'm not too familiar with technical info on NIC. Are Intel Pro 10/100 and 3COM 3C950 desktop or server adapters? I searched the 3COM site for 3C950 model with no luck, weird.

Mike/RackMy.com, what's the model of Intel Pro 10/100 adapters that you're using? The desktop or server adapter model?

To be frank, I think most network cards can push high traffic volumes easily. There shouldn't be a neat to invest that drastically in one.

Anything other than realtek based will do the job.

Junipers use Intel cards, that might tell ya something :).

Exactly, which Intel card that I should get? I checked the Intel site and confused with so many models available there. Should I get the desktop or server adapter model?

Intel with the 82550 or 82559 chipset should do the trick for a good 10/100 adapter.

Incidently, was I the only one who caught the $300 comment?!

Originally posted by James[UH]
Anything other than realtek based will do the job.

I am using onboard realtek and have pulled a file at over 10mB/s (over 80mb/sec).

I doubt that your nic is the bottleneck here. What's causing you to make that conclusion?

Perhaps with your volume of traffic, you should have 2 nics, or maybe gigabit ethernet. I would guess that replacing your nic will not fix anything.

nrsoftware no i cought the fact of the $300 but just cos that is t he persons limit does not mean that that is what they have to spend.

Twrs, the link that i supplied is a direct link to a intel server adaptor (not the highest of models) and its not a gigabit nic, as u did not specify that the switch that it is connect to will be ne quicker than 100mbit, aslong as u go for either a Intel or 3com server adaptor u should be fine, stay away from realtek/netgear and lynksys ect for server side applications.

vote for 3Com, whole range 3 Com's cards are stronggggggggggg

The problem why I suspected the NIC was the bottleneck because my server's getting heavy packet loss (25-30%) while being hit with nearly 40 Mbps of traffics. The network's fine and I found out that I'm the only one experiencing this problem.

The provider just replaced my NIC with Intel one. I'm not sure which type though, but this is what I got from dmesg:

eth0: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100], 00:90:27:94:0F:B0, IRQ 9.
Board assembly 729757-003, Physical connectors present: RJ45
Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.

So far so good. Packet loss's dropping to 1% and download speed seems to be back to normal (> 3 MBps).

it could also be the network cable being used (low grade), the router you're off, or the switch you're running off getting congested you do realise, not necessarilly 100% server problem.

I don't think so. Just to let you know that the provider is ServInt and they've been very helpful in the process. They even tried to move my server to the least saturated switch. So I knew it's not the cable, switch, or network. Either the NIC was bad or the 3COM 3C905 simply couldn't handle the heavy traffics.

Anyway, I'm glad that the problem's been resolved. I'm now getting 0% packet loss and the download speed's been back to normal. Intel NIC rocks! :D

From my experience Realtek cards are very prone to failing or overheating if used at high levels constantly.

--
Peter Hall
World War X Ltd.
peter@worldwarx.co.uk
www.WorldWarX.co.uk