Gigabit Network Speeds.... Stumped

[glassjoe23]

Hey guys... first post!

I have been trying for a networking solution that gives me greater speeds for watching HD video over my home network. I have several network capable devices in my home (wired and wireless) and needed to take advantage of Gigabit speeds versus my previous 10/100 connections. I've never had any issues with my previous Linksys Wireless-N router in terms of online gaming and internet browsing with the laptops in the house but where I have discovered significant lag or slow down is when pulling from my NAS drive and/or my desktop when viewing pictures/music/video content. So I went out and spent some money to solve my bottleneck (or perceived bottleneck) and this is what I have setup -

Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router (WRT610N)
Seagate BlackArmor NAS110 Network Attached Storage (internal Gigabit NIC)
Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (built-in NIC on Mobo)

Like I mentioned before, the wireless functionality for my various devices still does great in terms of performance. Where I am having trouble is hitting the speeds a gigabit connection is supposed to give me with a wired connection. The three devices I detailed above are connected via ethernet. Before I bought the WRT610 above I had the WRT160N (10/100 max). With the older router I would transfer a 3GB file to the NAS from my desktop (wired connections) and the max transfer speed I would get averaged 10 MB/sec. So I thought by upgrading to the Gigabit router I should get 10 times the speed of the older one (100 vs 1000 Mbit). Well, when I transferred the same file tonight the speed averaged 20 MB/sec which is significantly slower than I was expecting.

Is there something that I am missing? I'm not very network savy and am hoping it is something simple that will fix the problem. Do cables matter? I have Cat 5E cables at all attachment points. Am I missing something in translation of the 10/100/1000 speed ratings? Is 100Mb the same as 10MB and 1000Mb the same as 100MB? I was really hoping to get the full 100MB transfer capabilty so my HD video would not bottleneck and skip like it has been.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JackMDS]

When having good Giga Switch and two computers with Optimized Giga NIC it is possiblel to get above 50MB/sec.

I am Not familiar with the Seagate NAS. However most of the sub $500 Giga NAS' do not really support more than 20-30MB/.sec.

Maybe this can Help too, http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2030008highlight=giga

.

 

[sxr7171]

Well a WHS can support 50-80MB/s

 

[glassjoe23]

Thanks for the info guys.

I wasn't aware that different Gigabit hardware performed that much differently across the board. There was a stark contrast between some of the NAS units I saw in those links. Apparently my NAS110 is right on par with what I saw in their benchmarks.

JackMDS - you mentioned there might be some Giga NIC optimizations out there. Do you by chance have a link that explains that process?

Thanks again!

 

[JackMDS]

Well a WHS can support 50-80MB/s

The differnce is Not WHS per-se. The difference is that a computer with normal CPU Good NIC and grownup OS support real Giga.

While the stand alone NAS with thier make believe CPU, puny memory, and propriety awkward firmware acting as an OS can not produce real giga bandwidth.

JackMDS - you mentioned there might be some Giga NIC optimizations out there. Do you by chance have a link that explains that process?

Thanks again!

Make sure that you have a good Giga Switch. Some of the entry level Giga switch (and the ones that are in the Giga Routers) Sux just like the NAS' boxes.

The best inexpensive Giga switch is this, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833156250

Optimize the Computer's TCP/IP using the setting for your Internet connection type and double the recommended TCP RCwin.

http://www.ezlan.net/network/TCPoptimize.jpg

In most cases that will improve the Giga LAN transfer.

 

[glassjoe23]

I tired the Optimizer but didn't see any change. I guess it all comes down to the hardware being of lesser quality than some of the other models. Oh well - thanks for the info!

 

[SonicIce]

20mb/s is pretty much what i always saw with gigabit when we had it at lan parties. maybe 25 tops

 

[lopri]

20 MB/s to/from a NAS is as good as it gets, I think? PC to PC I easily get 70~80 MB/s for big files (e.g. ISO). For small files, anywhere between 20~60 MB/s.

 

[Emulex]

definitely the server you can peg two gigabit all day long with a small nas server (enterprise class) over a cheeseball gigabit switch.

SMB2 and NFS or hell FTP are far far faster than original smb on high speed links btw

 

[skyking]

Joe, even 100mb networks will stream HD fine. I record HD off broadcast TV at about 7GB per hour of content.
That is only ~2MB/sec. If you are having issues at those speeds I would suggest looking beyond the network speeds for other problems.

 

[santz]

I hope you have also upgraded to CAT 6 cables, as the max for cat 5e cables is 10/100, except only in some exceptional cases.

you need cat6e calbles to hit gigabit speeds.

 

[JackMDS]

you need cat6e calbles to hit gigabit speeds.

That does not explain how I get 70MB/sec. with CAT5e.

If One needs new cables get CAT6, but if the installation right now consists on CAT5e. Giga network would work with it with No noticeable difference.

 

[skyking]

I hope you have also upgraded to CAT 6 cables, as the max for cat 5e cables is 10/100, except only in some exceptional cases.

you need cat6e calbles to hit gigabit speeds.

Absolutely incorrect. Cat5E is rated for gigabit speeds end-to-end for 100 meters, provided it is installed to specifications.

 

[glassjoe23]

Joe, even 100mb networks will stream HD fine. I record HD off broadcast TV at about 7GB per hour of content.
That is only ~2MB/sec. If you are having issues at those speeds I would suggest looking beyond the network speeds for other problems.

Good point. I did a little testing today and saw that I had the most problems with the video stuttering when my internet connection was on. Once the stuttering started and I unplugged my internet connection that appeared to clear up most of it. I still got a few hiccups but nothing that made it too aggravating. Keep in mind that during the initial stuttering I wasn't downloading large files or anything and the only thing that could have been going on in the background were some system intiated tasks. I guess they could be the problem but I'm not sure. I'll have to do some more testing to try and narrow this down.