help- network slow 1 way only

[yyz]

I have a tcp/ip network between my desktop and laptop. Transferring a 5mb file from desktop to laptop takes 10 seconds while transferring the identical file from laptop to desktop takes over 2 min. Why?

I pinged both and the results are identical: 0% lost packets w/ avg = 2ms. Where's the bottleneck?:frown:

 

[obenton]

Check HD fragmentation on the laptop.

 

[yyz]

The hard drive can make it slow that much?

 

[GoldServe]

Are ne of your operating systems on either machine Windows 2000?

 

[yyz]

win 98se on both. I'm defragging but it's taking forever.

 

[emjem]

Are these files one and the same file, or two files of the same size?

As you know, two different files of 5 meg each can each use different amounts of hdd space, and thus processing time.

There could be some caching and bus speed issues, but it seems to me that your most viable fix is to defrag both hdds. Not to say that won't equalize things, but I've never seen THAT kind of improvement from defragging.

 

[GoldServe]

I dunno wut to tell you! ehe...i know if you ahve win2k and any other operating system it is slower to drag a feil from win2k 's exporer into the other os's drive and faster if you do it vice versa....hrm...maybe the pair of wires on for your cable that is responsible for send is slightly damaged...alot of cross talk or something...dat's the only other reason i can think so,...try swapping a cable first..good luck!

 

[yyz]

thanks all. the files are identical so there shouldn't be a difference. i did defrag the drives and there was a definite improvement but there is still a large difference. The laptops hard drive definitely seems to be the bottleneck tho. It seems to pause for several seconds before resuming the upload.

 

[emjem]

It sounds like your notebook hdd is FASTER than your desktop hdd.

Since a typical hdd can read data 20+% faster than it can write data, the writing is always the bottleneck in moving data. In your example, the data is being written faster on the notebook hdd (re 10 seconds) than on the desktop hdd (re 2 minutes). More evidence, the notebook is pausing while waiting for something to happen -- probably the desktop hdd to write the data.

I don't know how caching impacts data movement times, so I guess there is still that as a potential cause. But with this huge time difference I'm thinking hdd differences are key.

 

[yyz]

thanks emjem. Is there any way to sync the two?