No gigabit ethernet for D320?

[Igor Streharski]

Hi!

Is it possible there is no 1000Base (copper or fiber) LAN card for old D320 server?

[Ravi_8]

Hi,

These models (D class) doesn't support fiber

[Fabio Ettore]

Hi,

I think that Ravi is right.
By now D-class is old server.

Anyway about hardware of D-class:

http://docs.hp.com/iknow/faqs/hardware.html#D-Class

On http://docs.hp.com you will find more more informations.

Best regards,
Ettore

[T G Manikandan]

check the Hw product

HW:A4925A

[Igor Streharski]

A4925A is not supported on D320.

[G. Vrijhoeven]

Hi,

in the HPs config guide of 2001:

The A3591B Fibre channel and
A4925A SX GB ethernet adapters are mentioned in the Dclass section.

HTH,

Gideon

[T G Manikandan]

A4925A
is for D and R-class (except D210, D220, D230, D310, D320, D330)

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Igor,

Nobody is mentioning whether it would be worth it. Considering the D-class CPU & bus speeds, I really don't think it could even begin to keep a GigE card fed to it's potential. I say save yourself the $ & just use a 100BT card.

My 2 cents,
Jeff

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

And don't use a EISA card, as it is not supported on 64bit 11i.

[Bill Hassell]

The D-class, even the fastest, most recent model (all are long out of production) cannot keep up with a GigE link, thus the reason for lack of support. You would be better off using APA (AutoPort Aggregation) which can take multiple LAN cards and run them in parallel. With an appropriately fast switch that supports APA, you could get a pretty fast link although CPU overhead (due to the slow CPU speed) may negate performance increases after more than 2 LAN cards. APA is a priced software product from HP.

[Steven E. Protter]

The D Class boxes do take AA6684A GSC Fiber cards. These work quite nicely. With a fiber to copper converter you will get Gigabit speeds.

That isn't going to deal with any of the issues Bill brought up.

SEP

[Igor Streharski]

As the headline says, I'm curious about Gigabit LAN, not SAN ;-)

[rick jones · Accepted solution]

I'd like to reinforce the points about Gigabit and a D320:

Don't Bother

You may get marginally more than 100BT speeds, but I really doubt it would be worth what we would likely charge for the NIC if we still happen to sell the thing and it was indeed supported on the D320. I do seem to recall something about the lower-end D's - the ones with either the PA7100LC or perhaps it was the PA7300LC chips - not being supported.

I think the suggestion about going with a pair of trunked (APA) 100BT's is a good one if you need to increase your aggregate network bandwidth into the system.

One consideration about APA - it increases _aggregate_ throughput, not necessarily the throughput of a single stream (ie single TCP connection). Why? Because all the packets of a single stream do (as they should) go out a single NIC. Spreading the packets of a single stream across NICs would lead to reordering and while things would still work correctly, the performance would be heinous.

Now, if you want a server that can keep-up with Gigabit, just about anything still on the HP CPL can do gigabit. I suspect that an rx1600 would replace the D320 quite nicely, and probably even run your existing PA-RISC binaries faster than the D320 did. It even has a built-in GbE interface.

Given what I recall of the prices for the older Gigabit NICs, it might not be that much more expensive to buy one of those (or perhaps a LV version of the rx2600) than a gigabit NIC for a D Class anyway :)

[Jeff Schussele]

Sheesh - sorry.
Next time I won't waste your time with decent advice. I'll just tell you what you want to hear.
Go ahead & spend the $ for a GigE card.

Jeff (I'd be getting a newer system on the reman mkt that already had a GigE card in it. But that's just me....)