Optimizing a Gigabit home network

[phaxmohdem]

At home I currently have a gigabit network set up comprised of a Netgear JGS524 24 port Gigabit switch. My file server is equipped with onboard gigabit Ethernet, as are the vast majority of my PC's. I tend to transfer lots of large (1-20+GB) video files across the network, and have noticed that while doing so, my network usage (as shown by the task manager graph) is generally pegged at 20-25% utilization (or 200-250Mbps -- ~25-31MB/s)

I do realize that this is pretty fast as-is and that there are inherent latencies and other factors that kill transfer speeds, but most hard drives are capable of sustained transfer speeds well over 31MB/s...

- Considering my file server has a RAID-5 array capable of over 80MB/s and my main Desktop has 2 RAID-0 Arrays both capable of 80+MB/s sustained transfers, and transferring between the two happens at the 20-25% figure.

- Considering my laptop, the slowest gigabit PC on my network has a hard drive with Average read speeds of 37MB/s (according to HDTach)... and still transfers at the 20-25% network utilization figure... close to max performance for the hard drive

I feel that there is something else hindering network performance, and am looking for any tips to help optimize speed.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Thor86]

Unless you use multi-spindle drive array setups like RAID 6 or 10, then that is about as fast as your drives can accomodate your 1GigE network.

 

[Crusty]

What kind of cables are you using?
Are they homemade or store bought?
Are you using Jumbo Frames?

 

[phaxmohdem]

I am using a mix'n'match of store bought and home-made cat 5e cables, no more than 5m in length.

As for Jumbo Frames, I'm not sure what that is about... Is it a NIC card thing or at the switch level?

 

[Crusty]

Well, your switch needs to support it, but it's a setting you set on your computers. Do some googling about them, they will definitely increase your performance.

As far as the cables, get rid of any home-made cables unless they are in-wall and terminated into keystone jacks. Always use factory made cables for wall-to-computer and wall/patch panel-to-switch.

 

[phaxmohdem]

I don't even have any jacks in wall or otherwise to deal with, all my PCs plug directly into the switch. I'll do some googling on my switch and its Jumbo Frame possibilities. In my other research on the forums here, My speeds seem about average to what others are achieving on homes gigabit networks. so I guess I shouldn't be too upset.

 

[Madwand1]

Your switch should support jumbo frames, but they're not necessarily going to give you a big improvement.

There are a couple of other things you could try:

1. Under Windows, you could try pushing instead of pulling.

2. You could also try transferring using ftp, perhaps using a third-party ftp implementation such as FileZilla server / client.

There are a couple of other things that might improve Windows file transfers. A starting point would be some specs on the systems, including OS and RAM. (2) Would give a better indication of what the underlying hardware is capable of without Windows' inefficiencies.

A normal starting point for this sort of analysis is to measure the underlying network performance before involving the drives and the file systems, and especially before tweaking the network further or buying new NICs, etc.. If you search around, you should be able to find some details on that if you're interested.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Hardware Mainly used for large file trasfers:

Main Rig --> See signature (Win XP Pro 32bit SP2)

File-Server --> Intel C2D E6400 (2.13GHz)/2GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM/3x WD 500GB SATA 2.0 in RAID-5 (Storage Drive)/2x - Seagate 80GB RAID-1 (OS Drive)/ Intel DQ965GF Motherboard (WinXP Pro 32bit SP2)

Laptop --> IBM Thinkpad T40p 1.6gHz Pentium M/2GB DDR333 RAM/ 160GB Samsung 5400 RPM HDD (WinXP Pro 32but SP2)

Secondary Rig --> Asus P5LD2 Motherboard/ Pentium D 930 (3.0GHz)/2GB 667 DDR2 RAM/ 320GB IDE HDD (Partitioned in half for Ubuntu 7.10 & Vista Ultimate 32 Bit)

All systems have integrated gigabit ethernet cards, not add-ons. abd all achieve roughly the same file transfer performance no matter what machine is sending or receiving the files.

 

[acaeti]

If you have linux on any of these boxes or are comfortable using live-cds, you could use iperf to measure actual performance of your setup. If iperf is able to get up towards 1Gbps, then it all comes down to your OS, your disks, and just general inefficiencies.

I have a 11-disk RAID5 in a box with integrated 1Gbps NIC running linux talking to a box with 2xSATA in RAID-0 with integrated 1Gbps NIC running Windows and I can only max out at about 500Mbps on my network using Samba. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.

 

[JackMDS]

That the way the "cookie crumbles" Giga is nice word that language wise means 1000MB.

Good Entry Level Giga Network means transfer of about 30 to 40MB/sec.

Home Giga Network: http://www.ezlan.net/giga.html

Giga networking - http://www.ezlan.net/giga_net.html

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: phaxmohdem
Hardware Mainly used for large file trasfers:

Main Rig --> See signature (Win XP Pro 32bit SP2)

[...]

These aren't bad builds IMO, and I think you should be able to get higher transfer rates.

Did you have a chance to try out ftp?

I have a handful of tweaks which I apply, but I haven't been able to confirm that these are responsible for performance differences. In fact, although I undid a bunch of them recently on one machine, I couldn't get performance lower than about 60-70 MB/s. There are some differences in my system, particularly in the OS, which might be responsible (as well as tweaks not being un-done on both client and server). If I manage to factor those out and confirm performance differences for tweaks (as I should be able to), I'll post the details.