Bus overload worries

[Neil Jones_3]

Can a DL380 servers cope with 2 X single port 4Gb FC cards and two single port 10Gb network cards without over subscribing the 2 Gigabyte Bus and if so would I be better off using DL580 for my server farm?

[David Claypool]

You don't mention which generation. For example, the G5 servers have PCI Express slots which are not a shared bus. However, if you want to deal with a 2GB limit, your calc is roughly:

4 gigaBIT x 2 / 8 = 1 gigaBYTE

...assuming that you are able to sustain that rate and that the SAN is the source of the majority of your content serving, the maximum that you can supply out to the network will be the sustained data read from the SAN, so that is going to be that same 1 gigaBYTE, no matter what the actual theoretical throughput is on the bus and the network cards. 1 gigaBYTE in equals 1 gigaBYTE out for a total throughput of 2 gigaBYTEs, so you should be more than safe.

However, this is a gross oversimplification, and sustained data rates will most always be slower (not to mention that our calculation didn't take into account frames, handshakes and the like, so the theoretical data rate is actually much lower), so the short answer is yes, your DL380 in question should be more than adequate.