Windows File Transfer Question

[Aegwyn11]

I've been playing with my first foray into a dedicated file server this weekend and getting a little frustrated. Updated the network to GigE (Asus RT-N16 w/ DD-WRT). Getting about 20 MB/s when copying from my Win7 laptop (hardwired) to the server. Even tried plugging the laptop straight into the server (no router, no switch, nothing but an ethernet cable) and didn't get more than about 25 MB/s. This is drag and drop file transfer to a shared drive.

Server is Dual 3 Ghz single core Xeon, 2 GB RAM, Intel GigE, PCI-X 133 Mhz 8 port SATA card with 3 WD 1.5 TB Green HD's for the media drive.

I've done some searching and I think I found the answer, just looking for reassurance. The server is running XP. Is that the problem?

More questions:
- Would I see a significant improvement going to a more modern OS?
- If so, would Win7, WHS, or Server 2k8 be best/fastest?
- Or would I get even more speed out of Linux?

Thanks in advance.

 

[theevilsharpie]

The server is running XP. Is that the problem?

No.

- Would I see a significant improvement going to a more modern OS?

Windows Vista/7 as well as their respective server versions have some features that accelerate network throughput, but the hardware has to support it, and it doesn't really provide a substantial benefit unless you've got 10GigE or a couple of bonded GigE links.

Or would I get even more speed out of Linux?

Doubtful.

 

[Madwand1]

The server is running XP. Is that the problem?

More questions:
- Would I see a significant improvement going to a more modern OS?
- If so, would Win7, WHS, or Server 2k8 be best/fastest?
- Or would I get even more speed out of Linux?

XP-32 is definitely slower than every more recent Windows OS in file transfers over gigabit, but it doesn't have to be quite that slow (although it often is). Your laptop / drives would probably be hardware bottlenecks limiting your max speed.

WHS can be fast if you get lucky and use a Vista or later client, but 2008 and Win7 are more recently tuned/overhauled, and are generally faster. I wouldn't expect any special advantage of one over the other until you get into large number of clients, where the server OS is meant to be used.

A particular Linux installation may or may not be faster than a particular Windows installation, but no Linux installation can be faster than the fastest Windows installation, as that can practically saturate gigabit given fast drive arrays, etc.

 

[Aegwyn11]

XP-32 is definitely slower than every more recent Windows OS in file transfers over gigabit, but it doesn't have to be quite that slow (although it often is). Your laptop / drives would probably be hardware bottlenecks limiting your max speed.

Just did a DiskBench read test on a 5 GB file on the laptop and got 59 MB/s (this is the file I was playing with yesterday). So it would seem that my laptop's HDD wasn't the bottleneck. I'll do a DiskBench create test locally on the server (from one 1.5 TB HD to another 1.5 TB HD) tonight to limit it to just its harddrive subsystem to see what max should be. I used another program (HD Tune Pro I think) to bench the WD 1.5 TB HDD's in the server yesterday an it came back with around 80-90 MB/s.

Since my SATA card is PCI-X 133 Mhz (and plugged into that type of slot on the MB), it should have a bandwidth of 1064 MB/s so should not be anywhere near being the bottleneck in the server. I'm unsure of how the onboard Intel GigE is connected to the chipset though, so not sure how it might be limiting things.

BTW, my MB is a Supermicro X5DA8 with Intel E7505 chipset.

 

[rasczak]

view your local area connection properties and click configure. under the advanced tab select link speed & duplex (in windows XP anyway). what do you have this set as?

 

[her209]

I think its a problem with Windows SMB protocol. Even when doing a Ramdisk to Ramdisk transfer, the max I got was around 25MB/s.

 

[Aegwyn11]

I think its a problem with Windows SMB protocol. Even when doing a Ramdisk to Ramdisk transfer, the max I got was around 25MB/s.

SMB has to do with XP right? Based on my (very limited) understanding, Microsoft replaced SMB with SMB 2.0 (Vista) and 2.1 (Win7 and Server 2k8). Its sounding like I should go to Win7 on the file server since my other computers are Win7.

 

[Madwand1]

Just did a DiskBench read test on a 5 GB file on the laptop and got 59 MB/s (this is the file I was playing with yesterday). So it would seem that my laptop's HDD wasn't the bottleneck.

It is a hardware bottleneck -- it's probably the slowest hardware component in the chain, and as such sets the upper bound on what you can achieve on the system as a whole. In addition, having the slowest component in the chain 59 MB/s doesn't mean that you'll hit 59 MB/s actual transfers -- you'll get that only if the rest of the system is perfectly tuned, which it isn't, so you'll get some fraction of that as the maximum speed. In this case, 50 MB/s actual transfers would be pretty good.

Since my SATA card is PCI-X 133 Mhz (and plugged into that type of slot on the MB), it should have a bandwidth of 1064 MB/s so should not be anywhere near being the bottleneck in the server. I'm unsure of how the onboard Intel GigE is connected to the chipset though, so not sure how it might be limiting things.

BTW, my MB is a Supermicro X5DA8 with Intel E7505 chipset.

From what I see, that board has gigabit on a PCI-X bus, in fact the same bus as your storage controller. I'd suggest moving the storage controller to a different slot (and hence different PCI-X bus) for a better design and potential speed up, but wouldn't hold my breath on that.

There are some things you can do to tune XP-32 to improve its performance, but if Vista or newer OSs are already available to you, then that's an available solution which can give a still-better result.

 

[Aegwyn11]

Installed Windows 7 on the server last night just to test. Disk Bench copy from the Windows 7 laptop to the server clocked in at 60+ MB/s. Totally limited by the laptop's drive. I'm guessing that if I did the bench from my HTPC (SSD), I'd see the limit become the server's HDD's.

In short, from what I've seen, Windows XP (and SMB 1.0 by extension) SUCK for file transfers. I guess I'll just buy another copy of Win7 for the server...I got off cheap enough not having to buy the core hardware.