How to get the most out of my network?

[sep]

I have a LAN Party every Quarter and it's seems the network gets flooded once people start file sharing. Sometimes the network crawls on certain peoples computers vs other who can still shareabout the rest of the lan. My question to you is how do I maximize this network or make minor changes to improve file sharing? When gaming we never see a problem, just while file sharing.

Hardware (up to 20 people):
Linksys 16port 10/100 Switch v2
Gigafast 8port 10/100 Switch
Gigafast 8port 10/100 Switch
Miscellaneous cat5 cables (under 20ft)

Network Settings:
Static IP Address 192.168.0.100-145
Subnet Address 255.255.255.0
-No other settings changed.

Things we might consider:
Plug a gigabyte switch in somewhere?
Would a firewire network work better? How could we do this with minimal cost (daisy chain, etc.)?

Do you thing going straight gigabyte (nic and 1 switch) will solve are problem?

Do you think it's even solvable (a lot of traffic)?

Thanks inadvance to you all,
-JC

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: sep
I have a LAN Party every Quarter and it's seems the network gets flooded once people start file sharing. Sometimes the network crawls on certain peoples computers vs other who can still shareabout the rest of the lan. My question to you is how do I maximize this network or make minor changes to improve file sharing? When gaming we never see a problem, just while file sharing.

Hardware (up to 20 people):
Linksys 16port 10/100 Switch v2
Gigafast 8port 10/100 Switch
Gigafast 8port 10/100 Switch
Miscellaneous cat5 cables (under 20ft)

Network Settings:
Static IP Address 192.168.0.100-145
Subnet Address 255.255.255.0
-No other settings changed.

Things we might consider:
Plug a gigabyte switch in somewhere?
Would a firewire network work better? How could we do this with minimal cost (daisy chain, etc.)?

Do you thing going straight gigabyte (nic and 1 switch) will solve are problem?

Do you think it's even solvable (a lot of traffic)?

Thanks inadvance to you all,
-JC

Cheap fix. Set all the cards at 10 Meg half duplex.

 

[sep]

dmcowen674 - Can you explain why this would help? Thanx!

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Originally posted by: sep
dmcowen674 - Can you explain why this would help? Thanx!

I think what's he's attempting to do is add some bandwidth limiting on individual machines. Obviously, that won't help total throughput, but it will limit how much of the bandwidth an individual machine can consume.

One think I don't really understand. Exactly how are you sharing files, from a common machine, or between machines? If it's between machines, no bottlenecks should occur within a single switch. The problem occurs when you have two switches connected together, and a number of machines on one switch are all sharing files with machines on the other switch, you end up with a bottleneck between them, that being a single pipe. If you have a single switch that will service all the people in the room, or at least any that will be doing massive file sharing, the bandwidth shouldn't be an issue. For a configuration with more than one switch, a gigabit port between the switches would help ease the bottleneck there, of course that means buying new hardware. I'd try to arrange the connections so that most of the file sharing takes place within a single switch.

 

[Need4Speed]

because that would slow down all of the nics to 10baseT rather than 100baseT ie 1.2mb/s where as 100base is 12.5mb/s..effectively shifting the bottleneck to anothe component on the PC

 

[aka1nas]

Put as many gamers as you can on the 16 port switch as well as any game servers. If you are filesharing off someone's server then put that on the 8 port. Now there is a bottleneck for the filesharers via the 2 switches, but the gamers are on the same switch so they should be good. If someone wants a faster transfer for file sharing let them hook up a firewire cable to that guys computer and do a direct transfer. If you do firewire networking, make sure that its given a static IP and a subnet that doesn't conflict with your ethernet network, trust me, that really borks a lot of stuff for everyone.

 

[sep]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Put as many gamers as you can on the 16 port switch as well as any game servers. If you are filesharing off someone's server then put that on the 8 port. Now there is a bottleneck for the filesharers via the 2 switches, but the gamers are on the same switch so they should be good. If someone wants a faster transfer for file sharing let them hook up a firewire cable to that guys computer and do a direct transfer. If you do firewire networking, make sure that its given a static IP and a subnet that doesn't conflict with your ethernet network, trust me, that really borks a lot of stuff for everyone.

I like the firewire network idea. So to get this right. Get everyone on the main switch. If I need more ports use only one switch to get the other ports. Got it so far. Subnet or other IP Settings, do I need anything else?

Firewire Network: Same IP's different subnet? With this setup what subnet should i use? How can I daisy chain these computers together for a firewire network? Won't we get to a point where our drives (file sharing) and cpu become the bottleneck?

Thanks all...this is some good information...keep it coming!
-JC

 

[aka1nas]

You wont get anywhere near 400Mbits out of the firewire, I think maybe 120Mbit is tops for real transfer rate. The advantage is that it doesn't hog your ethernet bandwith. I've noticed it to have a lot less latency vs ethernet when browsing network shares etc as well. I have only done peer to peer firewire networking so I have no idea about the daisy chain thing. Wouldn't that be like a token ring implemented over firewire then? Don't know if that exists. I use firewire networking to watch video from my fileserver on my main PC and it works much better having the dedicated bandwith.

 

[skyking]

Set up a samba server with a gigE card, and a gig E switch for filesharing. Push the most popular files down to the fileserver, hooking up to gigE switch when peeps want to do it. Take home samba server with most popular files on it when party is over...........

 

[sep]

samba?

 

[zTargeTz]

easyest fix would be to get a bigger switch (imo) gig would be nice, but not really needed (plus thats a lot of gig cars you'd have to buy, but if you got the $$ go for it)

that should even out what ever inter switch problems your having (which is all it sounds like is going on )

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: sep
samba?

Never mind me, I am just trolling
I always wanted to set up a samba server at a LAN party is all............ Just need to get invited to one