FreeBSD bind performance in FreeBSD 7

[Chris]

On 29/02/2008, Tom Evans <tevans.uk at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-02-29 at 15:44 +0000, Chris wrote:
> > On 29/02/2008, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
> >
> > A weakness of freebsd is its fussyness over hardware in particular
> > network cards, time and time again I see posts here telling people to
> > go out buying expensive intel pro 1000 cards just so they can use the
> > operating system properly when I think its reasonable to expect
> > mainstream hardware to work, eg. realtek is mainstream and common as a
> > onboard nic but the support in freebsd is poor and only serving
> > datacentres to shy away from freebsd.  If the same hardware performs
> > better in linux then the hardware isnt to blame for worser performance
> > in fbsd.
> >
> > Chris
>
> Not to come down too hard on you, but the reason why Pro/1000 chipsets
> are reasonably pricey, and uncommon to find as an integrated NIC, except
> on server boards or intel own brand mobos, is that it is decent
> hardware, and hence costs real money to use. Consumer NICs like Realtek,
> Via Rhine and (imo) Marvell are cheap tat that 'just about' works, until
> you put it under heavy stress. I have encountered a series of Marvell
> based chips on my personal home computers that work about as well as a
> slap around the face. Also, even from the 'good' manufacturers, like
> broadcom and intel, you have 'consumer' parts, which are reasonably
> cheap, like bge(4) supported parts, and 'professional' parts, like
> bce(4) parts. One should work fine under moderate load, one should work
> fine under heavy load. One will cost $4, one will cost $100.
>
> I'm not saying the drivers are bug-free, but if you want performance and
> reliability, you get an em(4) or another professional chipset. Only a
> few months ago at work, we had to  order around 75 Pro/1000s as we had
> had enough of crashes from our bce(4) based integrated NICs on our Dell
> 2950s. Fortunately for our wallet, we managed to fix the issues in the
> driver/hardware before our supplier could source that many - thanks
> David Christensen!
>
> Personally, I wouldn't put something in a data-centre with only a vr(4)
> or re(4), regardless of OS.
>
> Tom
>
>
>

You working round what I just said.  A nic should perform equally well
as it does in other operating systems just because its cheaper its not
an excuse for buggy performance.  There is also other good network
cards apart from intel pro 1000.  I am talking about stability not
performance, I expect a intel pro 1000 to outperform a realtek however
I expect both to be stable in terms of connectivity.  I expect a
realtek in freebsd to perform as well as a realtek in windows and
linux. :)

We have our own opinions but for many tasks a vr re bge etc. even a rl
does the job its required just fine.  I have seen linux servers using
rl adaptors outperform freebsd servers with superior cards because the
linux driver is better.  I do agree its a sad state of affairs
datacentres like to rent out servers built from desktop parts but
unfurtenatly thats the market for you unless paying a premium or going
with own hardware colocated.

Chris