10Gb/s NIC worth it?

[nighttraitor]

Hi All,

 

Long time lurker, non frequent poster.

 

I have an unraid setup that I'm pretty happy with in regards to read/write performance from a single client.

 

My question is this though, would putting in a 10Gb/s NIC help with read/write performance from multiple clients? I am moving into a new house and have the opportunity to run cat5e/6 around the house and am thinking of getting a new switch with a 10Gb/s port that I would connect my unraid box to. I could see a couple computers backing up files to the unraid box and streaming movies to a couple clients all at the same time.

 

thoughts?

[bubbaQ]

I use 10GB NICs for main workstation to unRAID, and 1GB elsewhere.

 

This is so I can do large transfers fast -- around 450MB/sec.... but you have to have drives on BOTH ends that can handle the speed (or enough RAM on the receiving side to buffer what you are writing).

 

If you want multiple clients, you would do better to to channel bonding with multiple 1GB NICs on the unRAID side, single 1GB NICs on clients, and use a switch that supports it.

[nighttraitor]

Thanks bubbaQ, I thought about getting a 4x1Gbs NIC as well and may do that instead. would probably be cheaper in the end.

[bubbaQ]

Yes it is a lot less expensive to find a switch that does link aggregation and use 4 NICs in the server than to put 10GB NIC in the server and get a switch that handles 10GB.