10/100 NICs Have The Networking Knack

By Joel Conover  Two years ago it would have been difficult to predict that Fast Ethernet would rise up from the pack and become the de facto standard for high-speed desktop and server connectivity. After all, FDDI, CDDI, ATM and VG-AnyLAN technologies all seemed viable options, but only Fast Ethernet had the market support necessary to drive prices down into the realm of the affordable. Today, you can buy client-side Fast Ethernet NICs for well under $99--if you're willing to do a bit of bargain shopping. You don't have to look far to realize that the desktop NIC market is one of the most competitive markets out there. By far, 3Com Corp. and Intel Corp. dominate the market with nearly 90 percent of the overal l market share on NICs. The war between these two giants has made the realm of Fast Ethernet a buyer's market. Go to The Interactive Buyer's Guide While these vendors have a corner on the market, their products aren't necessarily as low-priced as their competitors'. These NICs offer advanced features, such as remote system management, wake-on-LAN support and other frilly options, which may be more fluff than your network needs. We'll show you which products offer the best prices and which options are supported by the respective NICs. Features and pricing should be your primary concern. Plan and Scan Before you rush out to buy a small fortune in Fast Ethernet NICs, you should carefully analyze your existing and planned networks. It is quite likely that many of your older-generation workstations can't drive speeds anywhere near 100 Mbps. As a rule of thumb, it takes 1 MHz of processing power to achieve 1 Mbps of bandwidth. You are further limited by your network file servers, which have much more finite disk throughput limitations. Cost and performance restrictions make older computers poor candidates for upgrades. However, many system vendors are now offering 10/100 NICs with every new computer purchase. The small cost associated with the 10/100 investment will pay off nicely if you plan to upgrade in the near future. Hub and switch prices have been plummeting, while NIC prices have remained relatively stable. So, investing in a NIC today and holding out for the infrastructure to support it will put you one step ahead as you begin migrating users to Fast Ethernet. Imaging, medicine, graphic design and engineering departments are all excellent candidates for initial deployment--increased bandwidth can lead to increased productivity. There are two realms in the world of Fast Ethernet NICs: the server side and the client side. Server-side NICs will cost $300 or m ore, while client-side NICs can be found for under $50. Both have a variety of features that affect price, but the server NICs usually cost more due to dedicated processors and increased onboard RAM. Client-Side Adapters In our Buyer's Guide charts, you will find NICs that vary from $45 to $130 for PCI, and nearly $300 for ISA and EISA varieties. There is almost no justification for putting legacy EISA and ISA machines on a 100-Mbps network unless it is for connectivity only; performance gain will be minimal. Client-side features will raise the price of the NIC, but they may lower your total cost of ownership. For example, Intel and 3Com are now including data collection services and/or RMON-style data analysis on a per-machine basis. In a large company, these types of features add more value than in a small office. Another new and innovative feature that many NIC vendors are adopting is called "Wake-on-LAN." This feature lets you power-on computers from a remote location via a magic packet sequence, w hich tells the NIC to turn on the computer. With the right software, you can power down your PCs at night and have them up and running before the lights come on in the morning. On the client side, there is no excuse not to have a lifetime warranty on a NIC. Today's integrated designs should never fail, but if they do, you need not be responsible for faulty hardware. Don't settle for a one-year warranty on a seven-year piece of hardware. When choosing a client-side NIC, make sure the vendor has a robust driver for your operating system. Check a vendor's Web page to see how often and how recently its driver has been updated. Make certain that all of the NIC's features are supported on a given platform. Many vendors are tied closely to Windows and Intel and may not support other PCI-based platforms or OSes.

10/100-Mbps Ethernet Network Interface Cards Search these other Guides Remote-Access Authentication Servers Color Network Printers MPEG Video Servers ATM Switches ISDN BRI Terminal Adapters Handheld Test Devices Firewalls Web Servers Frame Relay Access Devices Protocol Analyzers TCP/IP Stacks for Client and Servers Monochrome Network Printers 56-Kbps Modems 56-Kbps Remote Access Servers

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