[ntp:questions] Recommendations for good NIC cards

Ulrich Windl Ulrich.Windl at RZ.Uni-Regensburg.DE
Fri Jul 16 08:02:44 UTC 2010


"Russell, David" <David.Russell at dowjones.com> writes:

> I have seen several comments saying that the NIC card in an NTP client can make a difference in how well NTP will perform.
>
> My servers are Dells running RedHat.
>
> Does anyone have any recommendations for a particularly good NIC card for Gigabit speeds?  I am also interested in knowing if there are any known clunkers.

Hi!

I'd either buy a very cheap one (< 5 Euro), because those don't support
"offloading", thus reducing extra delays/jitter, OR get a specialized
expensive one. I think Meinberg has a combination of hardware and
software that can improve NTP accuracy. Possibly they only put it into
their own servers. The following link might be interesting:
http://www.meinberg.de/english/ptp-starterkit/zhw-pci.htm

(I'm not speaking for Meinberg, nor do I become rich if you buy their
products)

NICs for NTP probably should not use a shared or low priority interrupt, also.

Regards,
Ulrich




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