Jumbo frames

[Catsrules]

What exactly is jumbo frames, all I have heard is that you want it. But why do I want it I don't know.

 

[Emerald]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumbo_frame

 

[riser]

If you use it internally on your network it can benefit you. Going out to the internet it will hurt you. The frames get chopped to pieces if they exceed 1500. You might set it lower but the frame has additional NAT info stuffed into it which may make it exceed 1500.

Basically, it is only good for internal networks, not internet use.

 

[Catsrules]

How much does it hurt you when you go out to the net?
Because I do both, Internet and internal. Would i want it enabled.

 

[dEAne]

A Jumbo frames are Ethernet frames with more than 1500 bytes of payload. Site that uses scientific data that uploads and downloads large amount of information into the net uses them like research or educational networks.
It will hurt you when your network does not support it cause you won't be seeing things the way it should be like data from mars - like the web page took very long time to load or downloaded data gets corrupted.

 

[riser]

You can run a ping test and set the packet size being sent to any website. You can see where the packet is fragmented and where it is not. Very likely your ISP does not support jumbo frames for home users.

 

[Catsrules]

So it would be better if I set up two network cards one for jumboframs and local stuff, and the other for internet?

 

[riser]

Why do you believe you need Jumbo Frames? A jumbo frame is like sending multilpe frames together one way. This reduces other computers from communicating while that packet is being sent.

Image traffic. You have car every so often, enough that in between the next car you have time to pull out and get in traffic. That's a normal frame.
A jumbo frame would be sitting there while 4-5 cars passed and before you had an opporunity to get into traffic. While traffic is moving along, others have to wait longer.

Now if you were constantly transferring a lot of files from point A to B, and then back from B to A, it might help a little.

If you don't spend at least a quarter of your day transferring gigs of data between computers, it is kind of over kill.

You could set up jumbo frames internally and the other NIC to send normal packets for the internet. That adds another lay of complexity as well.

 

[Catsrules]

Well i just bought a switch that supported jumbo frams, and was wondering if I wanted jumbo frams or not.
I might try it to test it out but I think I will stay off it.

 

[riser]

'Technology for the sake of technology'

Just because it can do it, doesn't mean you need or want to do it. It has become a selling point, a sales pitch. Just like overclocking is a sales pitch now.

I work in a large enterprise and only in our data center, back end fiber channel switches do we even bother touching jumbo frames.

 

[Catsrules]

LOL, Ok I will stay away from jumbo frames.

 

[Catsrules]

Best answer selected by Catsrules.