Sunday, February 9, 2014

Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet Controller vs Single Port Gigabit Ethernet Controller


With 2 ports, you can use a technique called "link aggregation" or "bonding" which makes the 2 ports look just like 1 regular port to the applications you are running. There are pros and cons to this:

Pro:
1. Better fault tolerance - this was the original intent of the technology
2. Allows load balancing between 2 networks (E.g. cable + DSL)
3. Better theoretical speed (though you will be limited by the slowest part of your connection path).


...bonding [combines] both of the computer's interfaces into a single interface.... The OS can alternate which interface it uses to send traffic, or it can gracefully fail over between them in the event of a problem. You can even use it to balance your traffic between multiple wide area network (WAN) connections, such as DSL and cable, or dialup and your next door neighbor's unsecured Wi-Fi.
(ADAM PASH on LIFEHACKER 5/07/08 2:00pm)
Cons:
1. Puts your network adapter in "promiscuous mode", which means it will have to look at all packets sent on the network, not just packets sent to it - this means more load on the CPU
2. Your speed is still limited by the slower part of your connection path. For instance, if your internet serviceprovide is only giving you 40Mb/second, you can't connect to the internet any faster than that by using 2 ports.

If you have 2 computers in the same room, each with 2 gigabit ports, and you connect them all up via a gigabit router, then you should be able to get nearly twice the transfer speed compared to using only 1 gigabit port. In this case, your connection speed to the internet is not a limiting factor.

You did not say what operating system you are running. The instructions will be different for different operating systems.

In most newer versions of Windows, for instance, just use ethernet cables to connect both ports to your router, then go to the control panel and right click on the network adapter and choose "bond".

See the links below for more info.

Source:

Wikipedia article on Link Aggregation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggreg...

Bonding 2 ports on Linux:
http://www.linux.com/feature/133849

Discussion of pros and cons and other info on the technique:
http://lifehacker.com/388145/put-your-se...

Wikipedia article on promiscuous mode:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous...

Microsoft article on promiscuous mode:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.asp...



The Intel® 82546EB Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet Controller is a single, compact component with two full Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PHY layer functions. Packaged in a 21x21 mm PBGA, the Intel 82546EB Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet controller provides dual port functionality without additional board space requirements for the component and enables a dual port Gigabit Ethernet implementation in a very small area.



The Intel 82546EB integrates Intel's fourth generation Gigabit MAC design with fully integrated, physical-layer circuitry to provide two standard IEEE 802.3 Ethernet interfaces for 1000Base-T, 100Base-TX, and 10Base-T applications (802.3, 802.3u, 802.3ab). The controller is capable of transmitting and receiving two channels of data at 1000 Mb/s, 100 Mb/s, or 10 Mb/s data rates. For fiber optic applications, the Intel 82546EB's two integrated SERDES support 1000BASE-SX and 1000BASE-LX (802.3z). In addition, the controller provides a single, direct Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) 2.2 and PCI-X 1.0a compliant bus that operates as a single multi-function device on the bus at clock frequencies up to 133 MHz.

The Intel 82546EB's on-board SMBus port enables enhanced manageability and system health monitoring via the LAN. With SMBus, management packets can be routed to or from a management processor. The SMBus port enables industry standards such as IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) to be implemented with the Intel 82546EB. In addition, ASF 1.0 (Alert Standard Format) standard circuitry provides alerting and remote control capabilities with standardized interfaces.

The Intel® 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller architecture is optimized to deliver both high performance and PCI/PCI-X bus efficiency. Using state logic design with a pipelined DMA Unit and 128 bit wide buses for the fastest performance, the Intel 82546EB controller handles Gigabit Ethernet traffic with low network latency and minimal internal processing overhead. The controller's architecture includes independent transmit and receive queues to limit PCI bus traffic, and a PCI interface that maximizes the use of bursts for efficient bus usage. The Intel 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller prefetches up to 64 packet descriptors in a single burst for efficient PCI-bandwidth usage. Two 64 KB on-chip packet buffers maintain superior performance as available PCI bandwidth changes. Advanced interrupt moderation hardware manages interrupts generated by the Intel 82546EB controller to further improve system efficiency. In addition, using hardware acceleration, the controller also offloads tasks from the host processor, such as TCP/UDP/ IP checksum calculations and TCP segmentation.

Key Applications
The Intel 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller is designed for use in the following applications:
LAN on Motherboard (LOM) in dense, space constrained systems such as rack-mounted servers and high-density blade servers
Communications platforms using dual Gigabit Ethernet on the backplane (PICMG 2.16 compliant or 1000BASE-SX)
Internet infrastructure devices with high-speed requirements and limited board real estate, such as switches, routers, and load balancers

Features and Benefits
PCI/PCI-X Features
133MHz PCI-X busSupports bandwidth to allow wire-speed performance of two Gigabit Ethernet connections
Multi-function PCI device
One electrical load on the PCI/PCI-X bus
Lowest latency solution - a PCI/PCI-X bridge component is not required to implement a dual port design
PCI revision 2.2, 32/64 bit, 33/66 MHz
Application flexibility in LOM or embedded use
64-bit addressing for systems with more than 4GB of physical memory
Algorithms that optimally use advanced PCI MWI, MRM, MRL and PCI-X MRD, MRB, and MWB commandsEfficient bus operations
MAC Specific Features
Dual 64KB configurable RX and TX packet FIFOsNo external FIFO memory requirements
FIFO size tunable to the application
Low-latency transmit and receive queuesNetwork packets handled without waiting or buffer overflow
IEEE 802.3x compliant flow control support with software controllable pause times and threshold values
Control over the transmission of Pause frames through software or hardware triggering
Reduced frame loss due to receive FIFO overrun
Caches up to 64 packet descriptors in a single burstEfficient PCI-bandwidth usage
Programmable host memory receive buffers (256B to 16KB)
Programmable cache line size from 16B to 256B
Efficient usage of PCI bandwidth
128-bit internal data path architecture
Low latency data handling
Superior DMA transfer rate performance
Ring descriptor buffer structure with cache that promotes long PCI bursts to fetch descriptorsEfficient system memory and PCI bandwidth usage
Dual Internal Serializer-Deserializers (SERDES)
Enables dual Fiber Gigabit Ethernet designs
Solution for server blade backplane connections
Facilitates easier routing (improved thermals) and requires less power
Gigabit PHY Specific Features
Two integrated PHYs for 10/100/1000 Mb/s full and half duplex operationReduced board space and lower power dissipation compared to multi-chip MAC/PHY solutions
IEEE 802.3ab Auto-NegotiationAutomatic link configuration including speed, duplex, and flow control
Proven PHY technology compatible with IEEE 802.3abRobust operation over the installed base of CAT-5 twisted pair cabling at lengths greater than 100m
State-of-the-art DSP architecture implements digital adaptive equalization, echo cancellation, and cross-talk cancellation, baseline wander cancellationRobust 1000 Mb/s performance in noisy environments and despite severe cable installation problems
PHY detects polarity, MDI-X, 2 pair vs. 4 pair cables, and cable length
Easier network installation and maintenance
No need to know the difference between crossover and non-crossover cables
End to end wiring tolerance
GMII and Ten Bit Interface (TBI)Gigabit Ethernet design flexibility
Host Offloading Features
Transmit TCP segmentationIncreased throughput and lower CPU utilization. Compatible with large send offload feature found in Windows*2000 and Windows* XP
IP, TCP, and UDP checksum off-loading capabilities on RX and TXReduced host CPU utilization
Advanced packet filtering
16 exact matched (unicast or multicast)
4096-bit hash filter for multicast frames
Promiscuous (unicast/multicast) transfer mode
Optional filtering of erred frames
IEEE 802.1Q VLAN support with VLAN tag insertion and stripping and packet filtering for up to 4096 VLAN tagsEnables IT staff to easily create multiple virtual LAN segments
Descriptor ring management hardware for TX and RXOptimized fetching and write-back mechanisms for efficient system memory and PCI bandwidth usage
Jumbo frame support up to 16KBHigh throughput for large data transfers on networks supporting jumbo frames
Interrupt Management Features
Interrupt moderation controls - bring Intel's experience in Fast Ethernet adaptive technology to Gigabit Ethernet performance levels
Reduces the number of interrupts generated by receive and transmit operations
Maximizes system performance and throughput
Small Packet InterruptFast detection of TCP ACKs for improved small packet throughput
Manageability Features (available on both ports)
On-chip SMBus 2.0 port
Enables IPMI, and ASF implementations
Allows packets to be routed to and from either LAN port and a server management processor
ASF 1.0 alertingProvides alerting and remote control capabilities with standardized interfaces
Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE) 2.1 flash interface support (32-bit and 64-bit)Local flash interface for a PXE image
Designed for PCI Power Management v1.1/ACPIv2.0PCI power management capability requirements for PC and embedded applications
SNMP and RMON statistic countersEasy system monitoring with industry standard consoles
SDG3.0, WfM 2.0, PC2001 ComplianceRemote network management capabilities via DMI 2.0 and SNMP software
Wake on LAN (WoL) supportPacket recognition and wakeup for network adapter and LOM applications without software configuration
Automatic link speed switching from 1000 Mb/s down to 10 or 100 Mb/s in standby
Low power in standby states
Supports power down states without software assistance
Diagnostic capabilities including loop back, reporting cable length, cable polarity, number of symbol errors, and incorrectly punched down cablesProvide IT managers with meaningful information used to analyze the health and state of their LAN infrastructure
Additional Device Features
Eight programmable LED outputs
Indications for link speed, activity, duplex, collisions, pause by flow control, PCI speed, PCI width, and port ID on each port
Allows design customization without affecting software drivers
Eight software definable pinsAdditional flexibility for LED's or other low speed I/O
Internal PLL for clock generation can use a 25 MHz crystal or a 25 MHz oscillatorLower component count and system cost
JTAG (IEEE 1149.1) Test Access Port built inSimplified testing using boundary scan
On-chip power regulator control circuitry
Fewer on-board power supply regulators
Simplified power supply design

Characteristics
Electrical
PCI Signaling
Power Dissipation
3.3V and 5V
3.5W (1.75W/port) (typical)
Environmental
Operating temperature
Storage temperature
0° C to 70° C (maximum), does not require a heat sink or forced airflow
-65° C to 140° C
Physical
Package
Footprint compatible with Intel® 82544GC and Intel® 82545EM single port Gigabit Ethernet controllers
364 pin PBGA, 1mm ball pitch
21 X 21 mm (Saves critical space on LOM board designs)
Enables a single port or dual port implementation on the same board


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