On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 08:31:19AM -0600, donald.ritchey AT exeloncorp DOT com 
wrote:
> And if any of us can RELIABLY exceed 30 percent usage on 
> an Ethernet network, I want to see it.

Well, one of my amanda clients does two dumps in parallel over 100BaseT
at >=3MB/s dumper rate (each) every single night.  Does that count?  :-)

2*3MB/s -> 48 Mbit/s.  Minimum.  They average more like 3.5MB/s each.

As long as the packet size is reasonable, any competently implemented
10BaseT or 100BaseT link can gracefully handle sustained payload peaks
up to 90% of wire speed, no problem.

I plan on 50% wire speed utilization for my 11pm-5am backup period, and
I consider that very conservative.

1000BaseT is different, at least with stock interoperable HW and
SW; the 1500-byte packet size limits you to something like
50-65% of wire speed.  You need semi-proprietary, not-completely
interoperable jumbo packet HW and SW to go faster.

> As always, your mileage may vary ...

Yup!

-- 
Jay Lessert                               jay_lessert AT accelerant DOT net
Accelerant Networks Inc.                       (voice)1.503.439.3461
Beaverton OR, USA                                (fax)1.503.466.9472