I think you can get cheaper equipment, but mind you, you will be getting cheaper equipment. ;-) Netgear has some switches for around $1000 and NICs for $300, last time I checked. http://www.netgear.com/ You do want a switch, and you don't want a hub. Someone mention the party line and modern switched phone network analogy again, I don't remember the words. >>> pauljrech at acm.org 10/30/01 03:27PM >>> I need a high speed network connection between 2 database servers on IBM Netfinity servers. What are my options and what hardware do I need? I was looking to gigabit ethernet first, as I figured it would be the cheapest. But a sysadmin I know said he wasn't sure but he thought about $4,000 for two cards and a switch. Is it really that much for gigabit hardware? Is gigabit the cheapest alternative? What kind of switch is required? What's the difference between a switch and a hub? What's the actual transfer rate you can achieve? 1,000,000,000 bits per sec/ 8bits = 125,000,000 bytes per sec 125,000,000 bytes per sec / reality =~ 20MB/sec I'm guessing. If someone is familiar with this, could you send me some part numbers I can look-up? Thanks. Paul _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list