How is this so?

November 22, 2006 9:07 AM

I have a 100MBS Ethernet card on a box and the MTU is 1518 bytes, hence 12144 bits. Maximum packet throughput of the card should be around 8000 packets. But, I have seen packet rates (via perfmeter) of up to 13000. Am I missing something here ?

Anyone seen anything similar or got any ideas as to why this might be?

posted by plep to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

MTU is "max." Min is typically 64 bytes.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:13 AM on November 22, 2006

MTU is the maximum packet size. Packets can be smaller.

13000 small packets will "fit" in the same bandwidth as 8000 maximum-size ones, see?
posted by jellicle at 9:13 AM on November 22, 2006

Oops, should've read the question closer.

I don't know the answer.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:13 AM on November 22, 2006

Erm, what I originally said. :)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:14 AM on November 22, 2006

Response by poster: Yep, you're right.

Thanks all!
posted by plep at 9:16 AM on November 22, 2006

(Also, is perfmeter counting both incoming and outgoing packets?)
posted by hattifattener at 10:00 AM on November 22, 2006