This Story Posted:
June 22nd, 1999

[4:31 PM]
Gigabit Networking Comes To You With New Card From Farallon

Those Mac users who work with large files across a network will rally appreciate this announcement. Farallon Communications has announced they are shipping a PCI Gigabit networking card for Macs. Most Ethernet networks are 10 Mb, while a few are 100 Mb. Gigabit Ethernet is the next step in the development of this networking technology and Macs are at the forefront. According to Farallon: Farallon Communications, Inc. today announced the availability of their Gigabit Ethernet card with Mac OS and Windows NT drivers. Farallon's Gigabit PCI Card Now shipping, the Farallon Gigabit PCI Card provides much faster access to file servers than 100Mb Fast Ethernet, reducing the time users spend waiting for network tasks to complete. "We tested the Farallon Gigabit Card extensively during its entire beta cycle and found the card's performance in both low level and real world tests to be impressive," states Bob Kridle, President of Xinet. "During beta, we established peak performance at 123Mbps in a real-world environment with our FullPress Server Software running on a high-speed SUN Server. That's 100% faster than the performance we've seen with Farallon's Fast EtherTX-10/100 PCI Card." Kridle adds, "To our end users time is money, so if there are solutions that will allow them to decrease the total time it takes to complete a prepress job they will deploy it." Farallon&Mac226;s Gigabit PCI card features: 1000Base-SX fiber-optic port for gigabit connectivity. Mac & PC drivers for cross-platform gigabit in desktops & servers IEEE 802.3z standards for full protocol compatibility. Full-duplex support for optimal network performance. Jumbo frames compatibility allows card to accept extended Ethernet packets from other workstations without interruption. Built-in interrupt coalescing, flexible buffer alignment and TCP/IP checksum offload minimizes CPU's involvement in network activity. Adaptive interrupt frequency maximizes network performance. Status LEDs for at-a-glance monitoring. Free technical support & 3 year warranty. Helmut Tschemernjak of HELIOS Software, Germany, tested the Farallon Gigabit PCI Card with a Lantest 30MB file and a G3/400 Mac via a Foundry switch to a Linux or Sun server. The file write speed was 28 MB/sec and the read speed 17 MB/sec. "I have never seen a Mac this fast on the network," exclaimed Tschemernjak. The Farallon Gigabit PCI Card [PN9000-SX] is now shipping and is prices at US$949.00. You can find more information on this product at the company's web site. The Mac Observer Spin: Gigabit is extremely important, especially in the high-end graphics market, 3D development, Video editing, and other markets important to the Mac. More Gigabit Networking card options the better as this will eventually drive prices down. US$949 might sound high, but for those charging high dollars per hour, this is imperative to making more money. Farallon Communications