Jumbo Frames? Or not?

[Bandalo]

I've been reading the articles on here and some other sites, and I see some conflicting information regarding jumbo frames.

I have a couple machines and devices on a gigE switch that does support jumbo frames. 4 of the attached machines support gigE and jumbo frames. 1 printer runs 10/100 and I'm pretty sure my vonage box is 10/100. The uplink side hits a D-link wireless bridge to my neighbor's wifi (11g, and YES, I did get permission to use it! ) His router is providing DHCP and internet service for my whole network.

I tried enabling jumbo frames (4k sized) on a couple PCs and the WHS box, and it seems to have improved the file transfer speeds dramatically. (from 20-22MB/s to 30-35MB/s for server writes, and even faster on reads)

I understand how the switch handles these frames for packets on the LAN between the gigE stuff.

How does the connection between a PC and one of the 10/100 devices (say the printer) get handled? How does the PC know to throttle back the speed and frame size?

How about the router and WAN connection? I assume the router reassembles the frames and strips off the frame headers and then routes them to the WAN as IP packets. So can any problems come from running jumbo frames to the router? (I understand it wouldn't apply exactly in this case, since my link to the router is wireless so the jumbo frames wouldn't apply for anything going to the gateway)

Any good other articles you'd suggest to satisify my curiosity?

 

[thiggins]

How does the connection between a PC and one of the 10/100 devices (say the printer) get handled? How does the PC know to throttle back the speed and frame size?

Need To Know: Jumbo Frames in Small Networks

How about the router and WAN connection? I assume the router reassembles the frames and strips off the frame headers and then routes them to the WAN as IP packets. So can any problems come from running jumbo frames to the router? (I understand it wouldn't apply exactly in this case, since my link to the router is wireless so the jumbo frames wouldn't apply for anything going to the gateway)

The router will properly deal with the jumbo frames between WAN and LAN.

Any good other articles you'd suggest to satisify my curiosity?

When Flow Control is not a Good Thing

 

[Bandalo]

I read that article earlier today, I think I must have just missed that part regarding my question.

So far I've set up jumbo frames on everything, and it does seem to make a huge difference. Higher transfer rates to and the server, and seems like the slower speed stuff (printer and Vonage) are working fine still.

Thanks again for the info!