rdp@pbseps.UUCP (Richard Perlman) (08/01/88)
Thanks to all (the many) respondents to my request for
information about the WD8003E Ethernet Card for the "PC".
There were no negative comments! The only caveat concerned a
possible conflict between the card and ethernet tranceivers.
This concern was also echoed in a telephone conversation with one
"respondent". Rather that further editorials, here are the edited
relpies:
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From pacbell!sun!diamond.bbn.com!hlison Wed Jul 27 06:35:40 1988
From: Herb Lison <hlison@diamond.bbn.com>
Organization: BBN Laboratories Incorporated, Cambridge, MA
We have had nothing but good results with the WD card. In addition to
its price, it also has the advantage that it doesn't use DMA, which
is very important on XT class machines which generally only have one
free DMA channel after you put in a hard disk and floppy. We also
have noticed that performance appears every bit as good (in a TCP/IP)
application as more expensive cards....
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Path: pbseps!pacbell!amdahl!amdcad!phil
From: phil@amdcad.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai)
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices
Usually you get what you pay for. In this case, you get a very high
quality network at a rock bottom price. We use this combination with
great success here. The WD board is fast, PC-NFS has lots of nice
features (though it is not perfect) and the two play nicely together.
KA9Q is even cheaper than PC-NFS but I find the network file system to
be indispensible.
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From pacbell!sun!3comvax!HPD.3Com.Com!Claude_Ezran Thu Jul 28 18:54:28 1988
From: Claude_Ezran@HPD.3Com.Com
There are several things to take into account when selecting a network
adapter. Price is certainly important, but did you know that:
EtherLink II (3C503) from 3Com is extremely easy to install with only
2 jumpers (vs. 13 for WD) and software selection of DMA channel,
interrupt level and the type of transceiver (on board or external). this
also means that each time you want to change config, you do not have to
open up the PC.
With the WD board you cannot put a repeater when you set the jumper
in the 1000ft thin Ethernet position (instead of 600ft). With EtherLink
II, or any other 3Com adapter you can use a repeater, and that offers
you a better growth path for your network. If you are considering using
telephone twisted pair, you definitely need to be able to use the
maximum distance setting (because it translates in a shorter distance on
twisted pair--452ft with 3Com, point-to-point) AND the ability to use a
repeater. So in that case you do not have a solution with WD.
3Com's quality is outstanding with an observed MTBF over 60 years,
and a return rate of 0.26%.
The WD adapter is specified for PCs up to 16Mhz (according to WD's
data sheet). We have tried EtherLink II in the new 25 Mhz Comapq and it
works fine.
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From pacbell!sun!saturn.ucsc.edu!eshop Thu Jul 28 18:54:30 1988
From: Jim Warner <eshop@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
I don't think you missed anything. The two leading link
layer E-net cards are the Micom/Interlan 5210 and the
WD8003. The only thing that Micom has over WD is the
ability to accept an autoboot EPROM. (WD may have a
model that accepts one, but I'm unaware of it.) I have
been looking at the same decision. I will choose the
Micom board IF they meet the WD price. They claim they
will. But I'm planning a Novell network which is a
little different than PC-NFS. I think you're making
a good choice.
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From pacbell!sun!saturn.ucsc.edu!eshop Sat Jul 30 15:18:13 1988
From: Jim Warner <eshop@saturn.ucsc.edu>
I fired up PC/NFS version 3 on a WD card yesterday. I installed
it for my customer this morning. On j-random xt clone, I got
about 15 Kbytes/sec with ftp in both binary and text modes. That's
pretty good. There's a fair amount of work for the CPU to make an
extra pass through the file to do the text processing. The suprise
is that it doesn't slow down in text mode. This may be attributable
to the multiple packet buffering on the card that allows packet
reception and text processing to occur in parallel.
The client's machine was a 10 MHz AT clone. His ftp speeds, both
text and binary, are 45 Kbytes/sec. That's impressive.
The WD8003 is definitely a quantum in performance over the old 3c501.
The only disappointment with PC/NFS is that it ignors ICMP redirects.
This is only an issue when the PC is on a net with more than one
gateway. If the PC uses the wrong gateway, it will be sent redirect
messages telling it to use the proper gateway. If you have a complex
network and lots of PC/NFS clients, you will run out of bandwidth in
your gateways sooner rather than later with this sort of inefficiency.
Besides, it is a violation of the RFCs to ignor redirects.
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From pacbell!amdahl!ames!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!juniper!radian!cutter!markh Sat Jul 30 22:54:09 1988
We have a few WD8003Es up on our net here, it looks like the
price difference may drive us away from the 3Com boards.
One restriction that probably doesn't matter to you is that
PC-NFS can coexist with 3Com's 3+ on some cards, but not on the
WD8003E. It makes a lot of difference here, because we run both
3+ and PC-NFS.
We've had OK luck with the WD's, no significant failures or
flaky behavior.
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'that's all folks.....
--
Richard Perlman * pbseps!rdp@PacBell.COM || {ames,sun,att}!pacbell!pbseps!rdp
180 New Montgomery St. rm 602, San Francisco, CA 94105 |*| (415) 545-0233