Gigabit network - how fast is it really

[paulsiu]

I am curious to see some numbers on Gigabit networks. For example, I am suppose to get 10 Mps out of my 10-base-T, but in reality, the actual output is far less. Just how fast is it really?

Paul

 

[spidey07]

300-600 megabits per second.

The network is literally faster than the computer can keep up with, so the limiting factor is the computer.

100 Base-T runs at 100 megabits
1000 Base-T runs at 1000 megabits

If you can't fill these pipes then your computer isn't fast enough.

 

[JackMDS]

Peer to Peer Giga Networks

:sun:

 

[paulsiu]

I checked with a friend who upgraded his network. He said copying a file was around 9-10 Mps on a 100 network and around 20 Mps on a gigabit. He considered the performance to be terrible.

I think modern hard drives are at around 50 Mps.

Paul

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: paulsiu
I checked with a friend who upgraded his network. He said copying a file was around 9-10 Mps on a 100 network and around 20 Mps on a gigabit. He considered the performance to be terrible.

I think modern hard drives are at around 50 Mps.

Paul

But hard drives are measured in MB (megabytes) not Mb (megabits) like networks. A 60MB/S disk (average new drive) can transfer 60*8=480Mb/s or about half of gigabit capacity under good conditions.

To fill a gigabit connection you need an array setup with at least 3 drives in RAID0 or 5 on at least an ATA133 connection, but preferably SATA or SCSI. This is assuming your processor can keep up with processing that much information, which is not a given especially if you're using any kind or encryption.

 

[talyn00]

Originally posted by: paulsiu
I am curious to see some numbers on Gigabit networks. For example, I am suppose to get 10 Mps out of my 10-base-T, but in reality, the actual output is far less. Just how fast is it really?

Paul

wait does 10 base-T run in full duplex or half? cause if its half then your output definitely should be much less than 10mbps

 

[paulsiu]

I was using the Mega-bytes per second. Not sure where the bottleneck is (probably the cpu or may be the software using small frame size), but you definitely do not get close the the max.

Paul

 

[Atheus]

I just did a test, i uploaded a 77MB file to my server in 6.5 seconds, that's 11.8MB/s or 94.7 Mb/s - pretty much full capacity for my 100Mb network.

This is from a 10,000rpm 74G SATA raptor to a 10,000rpm 36G SCSI cheetah on the server.

 

[scottws]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Peer to Peer Giga Networks

:sun:

Dear Lord! What's with the frequent switching between bold and normal styles in that "article." Got annoying, fast.

A few previous roommates and I implemented a SOHO gigabit network for three of the nine PCs in the house. I think we saw a 3x improvement in transfer speeds of large files. If I remember correctly, I tested many times with SiSoft Sandra. Through my 100baseT card, data transfered around 10MB/s. Through the Gigabit card, it was about 30MB/s. No where near the theoretical maximum, but a nice upgrade. Especially since shortly after I copied about 80GB of data I wanted to keep to my friends' PC so I could reformat. Three times the speed with a transfer of that size (two actually - one away, and one back) was a pretty big deal.

 

[BDawg]

We have gig connection over fiber between two of our sites. Of course, to get to servers, the fiber has to be transferred to copper, so there's a speed decrease. In this setup, we see between 200 - 300 Mbps.

 

[Genx87]

I have determined that my setup at home is disk limited. I usually top out at about 260Mbit\s or about ~33MB\s sustained which is probably all the disks on the server can do as they are over 2 years old now.