RSSNew Internet Data Speeds Set
By Ed Oswald | Published April 25, 2007, 2:58 PM
A group of researchers testing out the so called Internet2 network said it had broken speed records by first sending data at 7.67 gigabits per second, and breaking it the next day with a data transfer rate of 9.08Gbps.
"These records are final for the 10Gbps network era because they represent more than 98% of the upper limit of network capacity," University of Tokyo researcher Dr. Kei Hiraki said. "Through collaboration by a number of institutions, we have demonstrated the ability to overcome the distance and achieve this newest mark."
Data was sent over a 20,000-mile path, which is over three-quarters the circumference of the earth. Data was sent from the University of Tokyo and then sent to Chicago, Amsterdam and Seattle and back to Tokyo.
The first test was done using standard TCP protocols, while the second used a modified version of the technology.
Internet2 is said to have a theoretical limit of 10Gbps, so its likely the last record for this generation of the network has been set. However, the group is not resting on its laurels: a 100Gbps network is now in the planning stages.
To give an idea of this type of speed, it currently takes about two days to transfer a high-quality version of a feature length film. On the current Internet2, that has been cut to 30 seconds, and on a 100Gbps network, it would be a fraction of that.
IPv6 was used to break the records, which offers better address handling capabilities. Previous speed records, were set using the current protocol, IPv4.
This is not new news. 10GbE has been implemented in many different markets: education, business, and many large telecoms are growing beyond what 10GbE has to offer. After reading the comments below I’m amazed at the ignorance of some BetaNews readers.
Transferring data at over 10gbps speeds has been around for several years. The hardware to read/write at those speeds is not new either. JBOD Configurations using SATA, SAS, SCSI, iSCSI, and many others are capable of writing physically to a distributed disk layout over 1,200 mega-bytes-per-second without any major strain on the system. Bottle necks such as the controller and system bus can limit transfer speeds and the protocol being used is also a major factor, but with tweaking and optimization any sysadmin with the hardware available can have a high-throughput network up and running with little effort. The biggest factor is the price tag for running such a network.
Now, what this article is referring to is transmitting large amounts of data over long ranges. Anyone who’s ever wired a large building with copper, or fiber knows that the data can only go so far before the integrity of the data starts plummeting. Having proper equipment and a large amount of energy is needed to push even a 10mbps line several hundred yards. So consider the implications of being able to transfer an entire movie from Denver to Beijing. This is incredible stuff.
As for the fellows who were getting mad because their hard drives aren’t fast enough to handle a 2GB file in under a second. News to you, the only systems doing the transfer will be in a large data centers. End users will still have to suffer with 1Gbps internet access for a while, many with less than that for years to come. That because not everyone can afford a 12,000 workstation capable of such transfers. This article was misleading in making the reader think that these were average workstations in the group’s lab. These were server class machines operating in an enterprise class environment with specific hardware – much of it very expensive exotic hardware we like to dream about.
So learn to read between the lines. Your computer may be awesome, but it’s nothing compared to some of the older systems out there. System many of us will never touch because we can’t afford the price of entry. But be grateful that large corporations with deep pockets are buying this technology to increase revenue and also increase the speeds at which we can download torrents.
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|so basically south korea will have this next week.
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|If that's the case i'll move there in a heartbeat-- even if it means having to be an enslaved hooker.
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|pretty good now who is going to back it besides educational institutions?
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|It's called using raid array's. have a large amount hard drives setup to send and receive data together that individual hard drive speeds is now many times what it is by itself. There are also buffers which store the data as well if needed. But other than that its not 9 gigaBytes. Its Gigabits or 1000/8 = 125MegaBytes per second per gigabit or 125 x 9 = 1,125 MegaBytes per second for a 9 Gigabit link.
Just hoping to clarify what they are talking about it is pretty darn fast though that is for sure. With those speeds and ipv6 the idea of having everything connected will start to be a reality. Phones, tv's, computer data, home appliances, alarm clocks you know name it.
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|To all below talking about hard drive speeds, it is very possible that they have written a program to cache the entire transfer to the RAM and then begin to transfer once the data is entirely in the RAM. Although a pretty big Sata II, or SCSI raid array is very probable.
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|waw masive connection speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd masive very best hard connection i have 20000Gbps connection
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|My hard drive can't even transfer data locally at that speed. What in the world are they using in their computers?
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|Your ethernet card can handle 10, 100, or 1000 gigabits ? You must be some kind of alien then !
Network cards can handle 10, 100, or 1000 megabits. 1000 megabits would be 1 gigabit, which is still far from 10 gigabits.
Your SATA II interface has a theoretical limit of 300 mbps. Which is far also from your gigabit speeds. Even if you had a RAID setup, I doubt any home user could easily handle 1 gbps.
So yeah, this speeds are way above anything you'll have at home anytime soon.
EDIT:
dizzy_davidh:
Why did you delete your post ? =)
jrizznit:
you are right... SATA II is actually 3 gbps... but still... a Raptor WD740 can only write at about 75 MB/s (600mbps)... there's no such thing as an aditional 2 bytes when transfering a byte over a network tho... a byte is always 8 bits... there's the network overhead, but you can't just assume it'll be 2 bits per byte...
If RAID 0 didn't'have any overhead, in theory, you would need more then 15 Raptor drives together to handle all that data. And you could do it for about 15 minutes, before they got full.
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|My hard drive takes several minutes to transfer a 2GB file, and it's not really that old. Seagate 200GB 7200RPM SATA. It definately can't transfer anywhere near 1GB/sec.
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|Hell, I'm getting 1MB/sec downloads now (yeah, MB, not Mb) and my hard drive setup still hashes like mad when starting a torrent download (and those are 2 SATA(350) 7200 RPM in RAID0).
I can barely imagine these speeds, much less hope to achieve them.
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|If I'm not mistaken, SATA II has a theoretical limit of 300 megaBytes, not megabits. There are 8 bits to a byte, +2 when transferring over a network; again that's if I'm not mistaken.
Bottom line is: A SATA II link is comparable to a 3 Gigabit network connection.
The other bottom line is: I want this now!:)
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|yeah i have a 10Mb/sec download and my hard disk gets pretty thrashed as well, damn those linux distros :P
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|Heh...that's actually what I was downloading yesterday.
I understand that it alleviates servr load for these distro's, but the initial speeds suck. I'd much rather they allowed for usenet distribution.
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|Our connections are never fast enough...this is how I see the ISP arguing over speed:
Col. Sandurz: Prepare ship for light speed!
Dark Helmet: No, no, no, light speed is too slow!
Col. Sandurz: Light speed, too slow?!
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to . . . ludicrous speed!
Col. Sandurz: Ludicrous speed?! Sir, we've never gone that fast before. I don't know if the ship can take it.
Dark Helmet: What's the matter Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?
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|Maybe when the new harddrives come out in 3 years. They have 300 TB space so they must have loooots of capability to fill it out =/
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