[comp.sys.dec] Is FDDI on a DECstation 5000 a significant performance improvement?

mcba@newt.phys.unsw.OZ.AU (Michael C. B. Ashley) (06/03/91)

Hi,

I have two DS5000/200 systems, one of which has most of the disks, which
are then NFS mounted onto the other one. I'm thinking of putting FDDI
options on both machines to speed up the data transfer between them. We
are also running about 25 Xterminals and I have heard reports that
Xterminal response is adversely affected by lots of NFS traffic, so the
idea of separating the NFS traffic from the ethernet traffic seems
reasonable (I haven't seen adverse effects as yet, but then the NFS
traffic is very light at the moment (although it will increase greatly 
when image processing users are split between the two machines)). 

From the limited amount of information I have given, is it possible to
say whether FDDI will be a major performance improvement? I am also
presuming that it is possible to do what I want: presumably one can
specify that NFS traffic should go via FDDI, and other traffic should go
via ethernet. 

Any comments?
Michael Ashley mcba@newt.phys.unsw.oz.au