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Cross-Platform Firewire Networking at Home?

Posted by Cliff on from the Xfers-As-Fast-As-Possible dept.

Stahnke asks "I have two computers that I need to exchange data between. I do music-production on a Windows-based system and have everything else on a Linux system. I need to exchange HUGE amount of data (5GB at a time sometimes) between the two systems as fast as possible while clients are waiting for me. 10/100 Ethernet is too slow, and fiber is just too expensive. Can Linux (2.4) do Firewire networking with a Windows machine? If so, how, and what tools are out there? I have a Firewire card working in Linux, but I haven't had luck with TCP/IP via Firewire yet."

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Just One thing to say by spoonist · · Score: 4, Informative

    > Three Words: Firewise Drive

    First, "Firewise Drive" is two words.

    Second, it's "Firewire Drive". That's a good suggestion.

    Third, the poster should investigate gigabit ethernet. Gigabit ethernet can be achieved over copper. Although I believe gigabit ethernet hubs/switches are still awefully expensive. However two inexpensive gigabit ethernet cards can be directly connected (i.e. no hub/switch needed) together with a crossover cable.

    Fourth, if the systems are capable of hot-swapping drives, the poster could plug a drive into the Linux box, load up the data, yank the drive and stick it in the Windoze box.

    Fifth, when writing the data out to a drive initially on the Linux box, use Raid-1 (mirroring) to write to two drives simultaneously. Then yank one drive out of the Linux box and stick it in the Windoze box. No waiting for copying.

  2. Gigabit Ethernet by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would seriously look at gigabit networking. a) its faster, b) it will work. currently there is no standard for the medium the transmits your IP packets so it is unlikely for two IP stacks to work over IEEE 1394. If you can't afford the price of two gigabit nics I would wonder how much your clients time is really worth. (btw, you dont need a gigabit switch because you can use a cross-over cable.).

    1. Re:Gigabit Ethernet by harakh · · Score: 4, Informative


      Dont even need a crossover on most Gigabit NIC's. Intels Pro/1000 cards all have Auto-detect MDI-X.

  3. answers, by itzdandy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux Firewire TCP/IP is possible and their is a kernel patch for 2.4.18 and its built into 2.5.x and will be a feature of 2.6 -BUT-
    this is TCP/IP ONLY!, that means that windows file sharing will not see across this medium, you will have to use IP (//192.x.x.youipwhatever/share) which may not be a problem for you but it's something to consider.

    This does work well, i have a firewire400 link between a windowsXP machine and gentoo linux and it works very well. I use NFS for file sharing as i feel Windows is the "guest" on my network and should pay homage to the exsisting linux machines :)

    i do get very close to optimal speed accross this link for file sharing. i have susstained ~45Megabytes/second transfering large video files. on these same machines with 100 speed networking i get about 9.5Megabytes/second and with gigabit i can get about 35Megabytes/second, but only on large files.

    The firewire link is by far the fastest but i think the gigabit is being help back by immature drivers on the linux side.

    good luck.