Discrepancy in transfer speed through Direct Connection

[digicube]

I connected two computers via direct connection using crossover cable.

Computer 1
Windows Vista
Marvel Yukon 88E8053 PC-E Gigabit Ethernet
RAID 0 hard drive

Computer 2
Windows Server 2003
Intel PRO 1000 EB Gigabit Ethernet
RAID 5 hard drive

I get about 40 MB/s transferring files from Windows Vista Computer 1 to Windows Server 2003 Computer 2 but only 8 MB/s from Windows Server 2003 Computer 2 to Windows Vista Computer 1. Why? It seems Windows Server 2003 Computer 2 is capping the uploads to 8 MB/s, is this a software issue?

 

[MustISO]

Check the configuration of the NIC to be sure it's not set to 100MB or half duplex.

 

[spidey07]

It's most likely a speed problem with your disk.

 

[digicube]

Both network connections are set to 1.0 Gbps. I set Windows Vista to 1000 Mbps Full duplex but there's no Advanced tab in Configure panel of the NIC in Windows Server 2003. In the manual of Intel PRO 1000, it says "Per the IEEE specification, gigabit speed cannot be forced. It can only be auto-negotiated." The transfer speed remained the same at 8 MB/s from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Vista.
I doubt it's the speed problem of my disk since I can transfer within the same computer at 40-50 MB/s.
Is there a way to test the maximum upload speed of the Windows Server 2003 computer to make sure it's the Windows Vista computer that is the problem?

 

[seepy83]

Are you transferring the exact same files in both directions? The reason I ask this is that you will actually transfer (for instance) a single 20MB file faster than you would transfer 100 files that total 20MB.

What else is running on both computers?

 

[digicube]

I have a few 1 GB video files on both computers, nothing else is running, CPU is close to 0%.

 

[ViRGE]

Something to keep in mind is that Vista measures file transfer performance differently than older versions of Windows. Older versions would consider the file copy done the moment the file had been transferred to the file cache of the destination computer, Vista however only considers the file copy done once the destination computer has written the file to disk. This makes Vista file copies safer, but it also makes them look slower than they actually are.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: digicube
I get about 40 MB/s transferring files from Computer 1 to Computer 2 but only 8 MB/s from Computer 2 to Computer 1. Why? It seems Computer 2 is capping the uploads to 8 MB/s, is this a software issue?

Yes, it's quite probably a subtle software/OS issue. I'm seeing similar behavior here, with one setup. 2003 -> 2000 fast. 2000 -> Vista fast. 2003 -> Vista slow. (All of these were pushes. Pulls may or may not behave the same way; the tests should be done consistently.)

I suggest trying ftp, using a decent third-party implementation. I don't know how "decent" FileZilla server and client are broadly speaking, but they have performed well in the past for me.

 

[digicube]

I use drag and drop via windows explorer. The speed is monitored by DU meter. My situation is similar to yours, 2003 --> Vista slow, both push and pull. I may try FTP using Filezilla. Did it solve your problem? Is 2003 --> Vista fast now when using FTP?

 

[Madwand1]

Using ftp has often made a significant difference, but in this case, I seem to be running into a weird combination of effects so I just don't know.

E.g. Booting the same machine to XP shows the same behavior. Testing transfers from 2003 to another, technically much slower, machine running Vista (x32 in this case) gives much better results, even from 2003. So this problem does not generalize to all instances of 2003->Vista, and you're probably better off just trying out ftp, etc., in your own case.