Router/Switch speed combination.

[fyleow]

..

 

[JackMDS]

Peer to Peer Giga Home Networks (Current State at mid 2004).

:sun:

 

[InlineFour]

Originally posted by: fyleow

I max out my transfers at around 20mb/s over the network, which is about ~160Mbits. It's definitely faster than 10/100 but nowhere near Gigabit. Any ideas on what could be the problem?

you mean 20 MB/s.

Byte = B
bit = b

When using Giga with regular Desktop OS, and as part as a small Home/SOHO Network, the 1000% improvement that you would expect, results in 25% improvement at best.

fyleow, your gigabit network has a 60% increase.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[spidey07]

Harddrive is the limiting factor.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: fyleow
I used iperf and when I changed the default TCP Window Size it was using I managed to get around 300 mbps. I tried making the registry edits but the transfer speed over FTP didn't improve, might be because I'm using Vista and the edits are tested for XP though.

I know the bottleneck is not I/O. The tranferring computer is a WD Raptor so it's definitely capable of sustained rates higher than the pathetic 20MB/s and the receiving end is a Linux box with a RAID5 array. Linux seems to have a more reasonable default TCP Window Size as well.

If you mean 300 Mb/s at the network level without drive usage, that's pretty bad -- check your measurement/technique, drivers, NICs, switch (try direct wire), cables, ports, duplex, etc., maybe even use a non-beta OS.

If you mean 300 Mb/s with real file transfers, that could be reasonable -- try sending in the other direction -- RAID 5 write performance is possibly a bottleneck.

Also use very large files for tests; performance can be lower with small files due to overhead, and disk caching can also throw off the results (some recommend 4x as big as your RAM -- a bit overkill IMO, but should be more reliable).

 

[azev]

I've been on a quest on increasing my transfer speed in my gigabit home network, but unfortunately without super equipments, gigabit speed is almost impossible to reach.
I've gotten similar result like yours during file transfer with pretty fast scsi and raid drives.
the only times, I've seen transfer speed of close to gigabit speed is at work when the servers are connected to emc san and connected to cisco core equipments.

You can try bechmarking your network connectivity using iperf or jperf just to see how much bandwidth are available.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: azev
I've been on a quest on increasing my transfer speed in my gigabit home network, but unfortunately without super equipments, gigabit speed is almost impossible to reach.
I've gotten similar result like yours during file transfer with pretty fast scsi and raid drives.

What speeds actually, with what drive setup, OS's, etc? Under which test conditions?

Originally posted by: azev
the only times, I've seen transfer speed of close to gigabit speed is at work when the servers are connected to emc san and connected to cisco core equipments.

What speeds? Under which test conditions?

BTW, I find the term "gigabit speed" in this context to be misleading. The commonly-achievable speed of say 30 MB/s is well beyond "fast" ethernet 100 Mb/s, and so is in the gigabit speed range -- a definition of 1000 Mb/s for "gigabit speed" in this view is futile; it's not just "almost impossible", it's actually impossible to hit for file transfer. An impossible definition doesn't make a happy user, and it's more sensible to look at the actual speeds obtained than an impossible goal as somehow being the target.

Here's how I see gigabit speed ranges (for file transfers with large files):

30 MB/s sustained: Commonly achievable with modern desktops using consumer gigabit. Struggle for current consumer NAS boxes to achieve.

50-60 MB/s sustained: Commonly achievable with modern desktops with fast drives (in the outer sectors) and RAID arrays using consumer gigabit. Not achievable with current consumer NAS boxes.

70-80 MB/s sustained: Achievable with modern desktops and servers with good RAID arrays using consumer gigabit.

80+MB/s: I don't know. Achievable in spurts, but I haven't seen it sustained. Perhaps achievable with high end gear, unconventional file transfer protocols.