>We are trying to build the best File Server we can possibly make with
>NetBsd on intel architecture. We built servers under FreeBSD but we are
>not satisfied with the NFS perfs, and Free Bsd in general. (PIII 500, 4
>U2W 18Go stripped HD, and 3coms/digital NIC).


The NFS implementation in both systems -- in any *BSD system, AFAIK --
is derived from the 4.3-Reno NFS implementation, done by Rick Macklem
and others.  I have not tried FreeBSD's NFS, but I wouldn't expect
major gains going from one NFS implementation to the other.

>We are looking for the best U2W card and the bests NIC (Network
>interface card) 100Mb available and supported under NetBSD.

>Adaptecs U2W aren't supported as far as we know.

Correct. It's on the TODO list for 1.5, but nothing there yet.


>Tekkrams and Intra-Server Cards (ncr) see our disks in 40Mb/s and spit
>lots of errors while detecting the disks.

If the NCR-based hardare is supposed to support it, and you have the
proper LVD cabling and termination, then that sounds like a bug.
Please send a PR with complete version info. (SCSI is not my area of
expertise, but someone should look at it before 1.5.).



>We aren't satisfied with 3com NIC too, we got lots of collisions. So we
>are looking for good Ethernet Card, with big buffers, and good support
>under netbsd.

First things first: getting lots of collisions sounds like you have a
full-duplex mismatch between your cards, and the upstream switch/hub.
What kind of switch are you using?  The early Cisco 10/100 ports
have/had a real problem autosensing full-duplex.  The simple solution
is to hardwire the ports at both end to 100Mbit, full-duplex.

Also, exactly which 3com card do you have? iirc, the early 3c905 cards
had a 3com proprietary PHY, which wasn't handled as well as the
mass-market MII-attached PHY chips.  I've used a 3c905B on NetBSD.
Performance is comparable to an Intel Etherexpress Pro/100B.  The
original 21140-AF and 21142 Tulip boards were also good performers,
but hard to find these days.  The 21143 reportedly has a performance
problem with the builtin PHY. Recent 2114x clones (NetGear?)  are
reported to use a new Broadcom PHY chip, which NetBSD doesn't handle
quite right, yet (though Jason has an evaluation board).


Last, Jason Thorpe recently rototilled the MII/PHY handling, to
resolve some problems I (and others) had switching between autosense
and hardwired modes.  Exactly which version of NetBSD were you running
when you had these collisions? Does going to -current as of late
November help?



>We are trying to beat a NetApp. We are close to the NetApps performance
>with our free BSD PCs, wich are a lot cheaper, and that we know a lot
>better. We know (at least hope) that we can do better with NetBSD.

Good luck, sounds like a cool thing to try.  But iirc, the NetApp
servers started life as a NetBSD-derived OS on running on 21164A
Alpha CPUs, so you should be able to get pretty close.

I just hope your FreeBSD performance didnt depend on using SMP,
since NetBSD doesn't support SMP right now.


>If anyone can help us with good tips...

The mid-80s advice used to be, get an NVRAM board so the servers can
log writes to NVRAM and reply, rather than waiting till NFS write
requests go all the way out to disk before replying. I have no idea if
the NetApps do that, but if they do, then write latency will be hard
to beat.