Hello Brian, Thanks for that advice. > If you already have 5524s then they are apparently stackable using a HDMI > cable, have you tried that? Actually we have 5424s at the moment, and a LAG is the only option for improving performance with those I think. > I have bad experience with Powerconnect 5524's, but maybe you're just not > tickling the same bugs I found (e.g. multicast problems, failing to learn > MAC addresses) Thanks for that warning. The Netgear is more expensive but probably worth it by the sounds of it. -Dan. On 01/27/2012 01:59 PM, Brian Candler wrote: > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 01:04:39PM +0000, Dan Bretherton wrote: >> I need to buy a bigger GigE switch for my GlusterFS cluster and I am >> trying to decide whether or not a much more expensive one would be >> justified. I have limited experience with networking so I don't >> know if it would be appropriate to spend ?500, ?1500 or ?3500 for a >> 48-port switch. Those rough costs are based on a comparison of 3 >> Dell Powerconnect switches: the 5548 (bigger version of what we have >> now), the 6248 and the 7048. > If you already have 5524s then they are apparently stackable using a HDMI > cable, have you tried that? > > I have bad experience with Powerconnect 5524's, but maybe you're just not > tickling the same bugs I found (e.g. multicast problems, failing to learn > MAC addresses) > > Haven't had these same problems with Netgear GSM7224V2, but then maybe they > have a different set of bugs :-) > >> Some of the users' >> applications do lots of small reads and writes, and they do run much >> more slowly if all the servers are not connected to the same switch, >> as is the case now while I don't have a big enough switch. > If it's consistently a little slower for each individual file read and > written, then it sounds like this usage pattern is extremely > latency-sensitive. If it seems to be in bursts then maybe you are getting > small amounts of packet loss, which is causing TCP to back off. > > Side note: if you are latency-sensitive then don't even think about using > 10Gig over RJ45 - it actually has a higher latency than 1G. But 10Gig over > SFP+ is fine. > > Regards, > > Brian.
