How to reduce packet loss with large data streams

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Situation

You experience a high amount of packets being dropped when performing large data stream transfers (>50MByte/s).

Resolution

Increase the ring buffer size of your network card:

Check the maximum size of the receive (RX) buffer:
ethtool -g eth0

Example output:
------------------------------------------------
Pre-set maximums:
RX: 4096
TX: 4096

Current hardware settings:
RX: 256
TX: 256
Set the RX buffer to the maximum size:
ethtool -G eth0 rx 4096

Disclaimer

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