Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Les Kern

macrumors 68040
Apr 26, 2002
3,063
76
Alabama
Whatever in the world happened to 'Jumbo Frames' and what good or bad were they?

You know, in a perfect world that technology would be great, but in the real world with our blistering low-bandwidth, half-assed internet infrastructure not so much. And imagine the config issues both internally and externally. Nah. (I am assuming you're talking about network technology right? And not The Jumbo Frames , the pro wrestling twins from the 60's?)
 

assembled

macrumors regular
Jan 12, 2009
116
0
London
Jumbo Frames are only usable in a LAN environment where all nodes (including switches) support them.

As the frame is larger than normal, although you have the same amount of overhead per frame, because there is more payload per frame, your total overhead goes down compared to the same amount of data transferred with 1500 byte frames.
 

Ap0ks

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2008
316
93
Cambridge, UK
Whatever in the world happened to 'Jumbo Frames' and what good or bad were they?
They're used extensively in storage networks and quite possibly a lot of backhaul connections utilise them. As assembled pointed out both ends of the connection have to support the increased frame size which makes them less appealing to general LAN networks and home internet connections.
 

ghboard2010

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 7, 2010
165
97
Somewhere
Ok I understand. . .

They're used extensively in storage networks and quite possibly a lot of backhaul connections utilise them. As assembled pointed out both ends of the connection have to support the increased frame size which makes them less appealing to general LAN networks and home internet connections.

Too bad; I've got a 2006 Mac Mini Core Duo which support(ed) Jumbos, or at least my memory leads to think this is the case.

I did however notice the wife's iMac{April 2008} shows this:
Marvell Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8055 Singleport Copper SA:
in the the system profile.

I think that old Mac Mini of mine had the same chip IIRC. I seem to recall Mac OSX dropped the Jumbos in 10.5 Leopard{again IIRC}. Also my iMac(Late 2009) uses a Broadcom chip which I understand also does not support Jumbos. So it looks like both hardware and software have evolved on the client-side to not use Jumbos. Oh well. . .
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.