Gigabit Networking Question.

[PlastikSpork]

As they say, "your network is only as fast as the lowest denominator". Does this also apply to the following?

At home I have a DSL connection provided by a Westell 7500 modem/router/wlan combo device. To this I have attached a Linksys E3000 that is used for 802.11N traffic and Cat5e/Cat6a connections only. The Westell Router/Modem is the DHCP server and also handles 802.11G WiFi traffic. The Linksys E3000 is set up as an access point and the DHCP server is Disabled.

Now, since the Westell 7500 max Ethernet connection speed is 100 Mbps will that limit my LAN/WLAN transfers that are occurring on the Linksys E3000 since the Westell is the DHCP server?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Traffic on the E3000 stays at the E3000 unless said traffic has to go to the westell.

The 11G traffic on the Westell stays at the Westell, unless said traffic has to go to the E3000.

So, If you have a device on the Westell's 11G network, and it needs to go to through the 100mbps connection to get to device connected to the E3000, then the 11G would be your bottleneck.

"Now, since the Westell 7500 max Ethernet connection speed is 100 Mbps will that limit my LAN/WLAN transfers that are occurring on the Linksys E3000 since the Westell is the DHCP server?"

The answer is, no. DHCP server location does not create a bottleneck. How/Where the traffic is originating and heading to determines where the bottle neck is.

 

[PlastikSpork]

Thanks for the information... What you confirmed is kinda what I figured, but since I disabled the DHCP server on the E3000 I wasn't quite sure. Thanks again.

 

[imagoon]

DHCP is so few packets that one can support hundreds if not thousands of PC's over a DSL link. It won't slow down your network at all.

 

[pitz]

Every so often, some *highly* braindead software decides that it will send all traffic to the default gateway, instead of directly to the machine on the same network. For instance, Microsoft's iSCSI stack does this as its default behaviour.

In this case, the speed of the default gateway would be an issue.

But as others have point out, its pretty rare to run into such an issue otherwise.

 

[PlastikSpork]

There is a problem that I run into with my shared drives on my media server, which is running XP media center edition. If I am on my laptop (running win7) and move a file from one shared folder on my media server to another shared folder on another hard drive on that same media server for some reason the file goes to my laptop over the network and then back to the media server!!!!??? Instead of going from Hard drive to hard drive it is going through the router, laptop and then back to that computer? WTF is up with that?

Instead of:
[media server]shared drive 1 ---> [media server]shared drive 2

it goes like this:
[media server]shared drive 1 ----> [router] ----> [laptop] ----->[ router] ----> [media server]shared drive 2


I know this because the transfer is super slow and my network monitor shoes file transfer incoming and outgoing at 8 MB/s

Is their a way around that?

 

[notposting]

Well that is 64 Mb/s, it could be a limitation of the hard drives/busses themself. Have you tried remoting into or just going to the media server itself to verify that it would go faster if you did it locally?

 

[imagoon]

There is a problem that I run into with my shared drives on my media server, which is running XP media center edition. If I am on my laptop (running win7) and move a file from one shared folder on my media server to another shared folder on another hard drive on that same media server for some reason the file goes to my laptop over the network and then back to the media server!!!!??? Instead of going from Hard drive to hard drive it is going through the router, laptop and then back to that computer? WTF is up with that?

Instead of:
[media server]shared drive 1 ---> [media server]shared drive 2

it goes like this:
[media server]shared drive 1 ----> [router] ----> [laptop] ----->[ router] ----> [media server]shared drive 2


I know this because the transfer is super slow and my network monitor shoes file transfer incoming and outgoing at 8 MB/s

Is their a way around that?

That was how XP / 2003 moved the files when shared on the network. Basically you asked the remote computer to move the files and it did. The server was only involved to provide and accept the data. I *think* 2008 / Vista handled this on the server via RPC as part of SMB2.

If you have data getting dumped to the default gateway all the time (I honestly have never seen the MS iSCSI initiator 2003 or 2008 do this for example) you might have a configuration issue on the network.

 

[Lifted]

If you have data getting dumped to the default gateway all the time (I honestly have never seen the MS iSCSI initiator 2003 or 2008 do this for example) you might have a configuration issue on the network.

I've not seen this either, and I have a hard time believing MS broke basic networking in their iSCSI initiator by overloading routers with iSCSI traffic. If they did, they would have figured that one out before it even hit beta. If a release version had this behavior, everyone would know about it, and MS would have fixed it pronto.

 

[DeathRayLoveMachine]

Every so often, some *highly* braindead software decides that it will send all traffic to the default gateway, instead of directly to the machine on the same network. For instance, Microsoft's iSCSI stack does this as its default behaviour.

Address Resolution Protocol does not work that way.

 

[PlastikSpork]

Well that is 64 Mb/s, it could be a limitation of the hard drives/busses themself. Have you tried remoting into or just going to the media server itself to verify that it would go faster if you did it locally?

If I remote into the computer and moves files between a SCSI drive and a USB 2.0 drive and the transfer rate was 22.5 MB/s or 180 Mbps.

That's compared to 8 MB/s or 64 Mbps when I transfer the same file from the same SCSI HD to the USB hard drive but I do this from the mounted network drives on my laptop.

 

[spidey07]

Address Resolution Protocol does not work that way.

It does if the router has proxy arp configured. The router will respond to the ARP on behalf of the other machine. It's pure evil.

 

[Ghiedo27]

There aren't any split horizon type rules for proxy arp? I guess there has to be more to it than that. Is it useful for multi-point frame relay configs or something?

 

[PlastikSpork]

It does if the router has proxy arp configured. The router will respond to the ARP on behalf of the other machine. It's pure evil.

So how do you fix it? Is there a way around it?