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FireWire Networking...Slower Than Ethernet?

jamesbond007

jamesbond007

Diamond Member
Hey guys! A friend and I wanted to transfer some large files between two WinXP Pro SP1 computers. Now we each have a SB Audigy, from which we used to connect the PCs with the FireWire cable. When the cables were connected, the connection properties said it was connected at 400Mbps on each computer. We were able to assign each PC a network address and were able to browse each other's computers over the FireWire connection.

Each of us have DU Meter 3, which is a bandwidth/traffic meter program. (Very nice!) Anyways, when the transferring of the files started, it'd peak ~12MB/sec...a bit faster than my average Ethernet transfers (100Mbps on a switch), but it'd slow down to ~4-5 and sometimes go up to and hover around the 9MB/sec area. Then it'd go back down again to 4-5MB/sec and sometimes even 2-3.

When we switched back to Ethernet, we were able to sustain a constant 9-10MB/sec transfer, blowing our FireWire at 400Mbps connection away.

I'm not sure if the slowness is due to the Audigy FireWire controller or the fact that we have something setup wrong. If anyone has transferred over FireWire and had greater speeds, please enlighten me. 🙂
 
I just ran a quick test between two XP Pro machines on my network using NetCPS:

C:\netcps -m10000 192.168.69.1
NetCPS 1.0 - Entering client mode. Press ^C to quit
Connecting to 192.168.69.1 port 4455... Connected!
---> CPS 12857344.00 KPS: 12556.00 MPS: 12.26
Avrg CPS 12746330.00 KPS: 12447.59 MPS: 12.16
Peek CPS 12876800.00 KPS: 12575.00 MPS: 12.28
Done. 1895825408 Kb transferred in 148.74 seconds.

the -m10000 switch was supposed to generate 10GB of data between machines, but I believe the program only went up to ~1.8GB. In any case, the numbers reported at the end of the test are accurate (except that the transfer total should be in bytes, not kilobytes), and the transfer rate stayed above 12MPS throughout the transfer. Switching rolls of the machines (client/server -> server/client) resulted in a ~10.5MPS transfer rate. The CPU in the slower of the two machines (p3-700) was at 100% usage the entire time whether the machine was a server or client, so it may have been a bottleneck.

Edit: Machine #1: Dual Athlon 1200 / TI chipset PCI firewire; Machine #2: P3-700 Sony Laptop / integrated firewire

~bex0rs
 
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