Port mirroring with ALOT of Drops Tx on a 5406zl

Question

Hi everybody.
My first post here and I'm convinced that the questions I have will be easily answered by several of the true experts that reside here in the forum.
Question #1.
I've set up port mirroring this way on my HP procurve J8697A Switch 5406zl (Software revision K.15.12.0015)
sw-dh-1(config)# show monitor 1
Network Monitoring
   Session: 4    Session Name:
      Mirror Destination:  B13   (Port)
      Monitoring Sources  Direction Truncation Mirror Policy
      Port: F1            Both       No         -
      Port: F2            Both       No         -
      Port: F3            Both       No         -
      sw-dh-1# show monitor 2
Network Monitoring
   Session: 3    Session Name:
      Mirror Destination:  A6    (Port)
      Monitoring Sources  Direction Truncation Mirror Policy
      Port: A7            Both       No         -
      Port: B6            Both       No         -
      Port: B10           Both       No         -
      Port: Trk5          Both       No         -
      Port: Trk9          Both       No         -
      Port: Trk11         Both       No         -
See output of "show interface" below. I'm worried about "Drop Tx". What does that mean exactly? Are mirrored packets dropped or does this mean that the ordinary traffic on the monitoring ports are also affected? If yes, how? Data loss, resending packets, loss of speed, high CPU load on the switch?
sw-dh-1# show interfaces B13
 Status and Counters - Port Counters for port B13
  Name  : <removed>
  MAC Address      : xxxxxx-xxxxx
  Link Status      : Up
  Totals (Since boot or last clear) :
   Bytes Rx        : 576                Bytes Tx        : 4,252,895,128
   Unicast Rx      : 0                  Unicast Tx      : 3,440,299,294
   Bcast/Mcast Rx  : 9                  Bcast/Mcast Tx  : 412,639,331
  Errors (Since boot or last clear) :
   FCS Rx          : 0                  Drops Tx        : 29,441,235
   Alignment Rx    : 0                  Collisions Tx   : 0
   Runts Rx        : 0                  Late Colln Tx   : 0
   Giants Rx       : 0                  Excessive Colln : 0
   Total Rx Errors : 0                  Deferred Tx     : 0
  Others (Since boot or last clear) :
   Discard Rx      : 0                  Out Queue Len   : 0
   Unknown Protos  : 0
  Rates (5 minute weighted average) :
   Total Rx  (bps) : 0                  Total Tx  (bps) : 5,002,088
   Unicast Rx (Pkts/sec) : 0            Unicast Tx (Pkts/sec) : 0
   B/Mcast Rx (Pkts/sec) : 0            B/Mcast Tx (Pkts/sec) : 6
   Utilization Rx  :     0 %            Utilization Tx  : 0.50 %
sw-dh-1# show interfaces A6
 Status and Counters - Port Counters for port A6
  Name  : <removed>
  MAC Address      : xxxxx-xxxxx
  Link Status      : Up
  Totals (Since boot or last clear) :
   Bytes Rx        : 960                Bytes Tx        : 1,442,037,177
   Unicast Rx      : 0                  Unicast Tx      : 1,988,961,810
   Bcast/Mcast Rx  : 15                 Bcast/Mcast Tx  : 339,915,002
  Errors (Since boot or last clear) :
   FCS Rx          : 0                  Drops Tx        : 1,647,165,303
   Alignment Rx    : 0                  Collisions Tx   : 0
   Runts Rx        : 0                  Late Colln Tx   : 0
   Giants Rx       : 0                  Excessive Colln : 0
   Total Rx Errors : 0                  Deferred Tx     : 0
  Others (Since boot or last clear) :
   Discard Rx      : 0                  Out Queue Len   : 0
   Unknown Protos  : 0
  Rates (5 minute weighted average) :
   Total Rx  (bps) : 0                  Total Tx  (bps) : 5,000,000
   Unicast Rx (Pkts/sec) : 0            Unicast Tx (Pkts/sec) : 0
   B/Mcast Rx (Pkts/sec) : 0            B/Mcast Tx (Pkts/sec) : 0
   Utilization Rx  :     0 %            Utilization Tx  : 0.50 %
Utilzation and total last 5 minutes is off since I turned the mirroring off when I saw the drops. Utilization when port mirroring was on was 20-35%.   
Question #2:
Is it better if I mirror out all traffic to the 10GB port instead? Assuming that it is possible to do port mirroring to the 10GB port?
best regards,
Dean Y

Answer 1

You don;t indicate which router you have, but that doesn;t really matter.Neither the Actiontec MI424-WR or the Quantum G1100 have port mirroring.  You need qan old fashioned hub, or a managed switch that supports it.