[mythtv-users] gig network upgrade - is it worth it?

[Joseph Fry]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Roger Horner <roger1818 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Don't forget the higher communication speed also means higher power
> consumption, even when idle.  While a couple watts may not seem like much,
> if you keep the equipment on 24/7, that works out to a couple bucks of
> electricity per year per computer (plus extra for the switch).  If you are
> frequently doing file transfers, it might be worth the expense, but it isn't
> necessary if all you are doing is streaming video (100baseT is more than
> enough for multiple simultaneous streams).  Just one more thing to keep in
> mind.
>
>
This is not entirely true.  There is absolutely no direct correlation
between bandwidth and power consumption.  While it is true that a Gigbit
switch produced at the same time as an equivalent 100Mbps switch may consume
1-2W more power per port, our "green" society has encouraged vendors to
implement power saving technologies that can make replacing an old 100Mbps
switch with a Gigabit switch a power saving upgrade.

Even if you were upgrading to a more power hungry switch, simply having a GB
network can save you power simply because the DURATION of the transfer is
reduced allowing the machine to resume a low power state (assuming it left
it to perform the transfer) much sooner.  Of course this depends upon your
workload/environment; this is especially true with the new Green switches.

Check out:
http://www.dlinkgreen.com/energyefficiency.asp
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