User manual UNIBRAIN FIRE-NET 2.2 INSTALLATION GUIDE

[. . . ] Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide unibrain The FireWire Innovators e-mail: ubinfo@unibrain. com web-site: http://www. unibrain. com September 2001 1 Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide Dear FirenetTM Customer, Thank you for purchasing Unibrain's FireNetTM software, THE FIRST AND ONLY FireWireTM Networking Solution for Windows and Macintosh. Firenet is a system-independent software product that gives you full Ethernet compatibility at speeds of up to 400Mbps. There are two different versions of FireNet; which one you choose depends upon your operating system. · FireNetTM 2. 2 Station for Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 Professional & Windows XP using any OHCI 1394 Link Controller (i. e. , Unibrain's Fireboard 400-OHCI, PCI to 1394 controller). [. . . ] The green line indicates the Network throughput while the red line indicates the CPU usage, which starts from 100% occupancy and drops to around 65% for larger packet sizes. Figure B2 The following picture shows the results of the netio benchmark for various file packet sizes: Figure B3 Please notice that for a point to point connection, Firenet has a performance of around 23 MB/sec. 3 Netio can be obtained for free from: ftp://ftp. leo. org/pub/comp/os/os2/leo/systools/netio111. zip 32 Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide 2. Custom Unibrain Test on PCs For the following test, we used three client computers running Windows 2000 Professional connected to a Windows 2000 Server in a common 1394 bus. For each client a drive letter map was created with a shared directory in the server and the following batch file was running: : loop copy p:\test /y goto loop Where p:\ is the server map and test is a 40 MB file. The advantage of this test is that, because the Server is equipped with 256 MB of RAM, the repetitive file copy does not affect its HDD. Thus, the benchmark can measure true network throughput and performance. The graph below (Figure B4) was captured from the server's Performance Monitor. It shows how Firenet gradually increases in performance while, one by one, the 3 clients start running the batch command. The green line depicts the network throughput in MB/sec and the red line indicates CPU usage. When the first client is connected there is a network throughput of 13 MB/sec. The second client increases throughput to 19 MB/sec and the third client increases it to 21-22 MB/sec. Figure B4 33 Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide For comparison, we repeated the same benchmark, but this time we connected both the server and on a Fast Ethernet switch. As expected, the server network adapter topped at around 11. 5 MB/sec (90 Mbit/sec). Figure B5 34 Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide 3. Firenet in Windows 2000 Server and Mac clients The test was performed using a Windows 2000 Server and 3 Apple G4 clients, connected one at a time and each running the Helios LanTest. Below (Figure B6) you can see the Server Device Manager, which shows the 3 Mac G4 clients under the "Unibrain 1394 devices" group. Figure B6 Figure B7 This picture (Figure B7) was captured from the server's Performance Monitor. Notice how the network performance increases as each G4 is connected. 35 Unibrain FireNetTM 2. 2 Installation Guide Network Performance ­ Some Considerations From recent correspondence, it has become increasingly clear that there is a considerable amount of confusion whenever network speeds are discussed. Many users, who still have a problem understanding why 100 Mbps Ethernet does not perform in many cases in the expected 100 Mbit speed, are asking the entirely reasonable question of how the 400Mbps speed achieved with IEEE-1394 will affect their network throughput. It would be nice if it was possible to give a single specific answer to this question, but the true picture is somewhat more complicated. Network Bus Topology, Architecture and congestion scaling. More analytically: The 1st factor has to do with the Operating System's Network stack efficiency and the quality/design of the network adapter (the device that connects the actual computer with the Network medium). For example, Windows 9x line (Windows 95, 98 & 98SE, WinME), which was designed with the home user in mind, cannot take advantage of faster network throughput than Fast Ethernet. In fact, it can not fully initialize a Fast Ethernet network, no matter how fast the hardware is. In such a case, Firenet can not reach it's true potential under this Operating Systems and, in the best case, its speed is slightly better than Fast Ethernet. Macintosh's "Personal File Sharing" and Appletalk provide very low performance even in the newest, state of the art G4 models and have made Apple users desperate for a faster network solution. The reason behind this inefficiency is the design of these protocols, which has not evolved for many years. [. . . ] Unfortunately the installation log file has been corrupted and you must uninstall Firenet manually. Please follow carefully the instructions below: 1) Go to Device Manager, expand the "Network Adapters" section, right-click on "Unibrain 1394 adapter" and choose "Uninstall". 2) Go to the Program Files directory and delete the folder "Unibrain". 3) Go to the Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\ directory and delete the (hidden) directory: {4C2F992E-32DC-11D4-AC0D-0080C8ECCD31} (In order to enable viewing of hidden files, open Windows Explorer, go to Tools menu, choose Folder Options, click on the "View" tab and in the "Hidden files and folders section", choose "Show Hidden files and folders"). [. . . ]