Gigabit network - how much faster should it be?

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II

06/19/2008 12:38:55 PM · #1

Say my wired netword runs through a router, supposedly at 100mbps. I add a gigabit switch to the mix and move a few PC's with gigabit cards onto the switch. File transfer, in reality, becomes about three times faster in both push and pull.

I thought the speed increase should have been more.

What could my new limiting factor(s) be? Hard drive speed? Protocols?

Bujanx

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

06/19/2008 12:43:13 PM · #2

HD speed and make sure your cables are cat5e instead of regular cat5.

06/19/2008 12:59:12 PM · #3

Cables and hard drives can be issues as well as network usage, if I remember correctly vist reports about 20-25mb/sec transfer over my gigbit network... its definately way faster than when I had 100BT running...

-dave

06/19/2008 01:01:08 PM · #4

Originally posted by Bujanx:

HD speed and make sure your cables are cat5e instead of regular cat5.

Thanks!

There are two runs I did myself the I know are 5e, I'll have to test on those.

I have some patch cables that I made up myself using 5e as well.

But we also have a lot of 'store-bought' patch cables without a "5e" lable on them. Will all 5e cable have the 5e label? Is there a way to tell what's not 5e? Does "24 AWG" mean 5e?
:-O

smurfguy

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

06/19/2008 01:01:31 PM · #5

I have a gigabit network at work, and transferring a large file between two machines tops out at about 27 MB/s (27 megabytes per second, which is roughly 216 megabits, or 0.2 gigabits). These are both fairly high-powered servers.

I suspect hard drive speed is the next limiting factor.

Hmm - you've got me all curious. I should try mounting a RAM disk partition on each machine, then copying files between them... I suspect, given network protocol overhead, the network would saturate somewhere around 600-800 megabits.

06/19/2008 01:06:29 PM · #6

Originally posted by dknourek:

All WinXP here. My rough calculation of a file transfer here is, on the 100mbps network was about 10mb/sec. On the 1000mbps switch I now get about 31mb/sec.

(That's me timing the transfer of a 1.3gb file by hand.)

06/19/2008 01:10:18 PM · #7

Originally posted by smurfguy:

Heh, geek! ;-)

06/19/2008 01:12:38 PM · #8

Originally posted by Strikeslip:

Originally posted by dknourek:
Cables and hard drives can be issues as well as network usage, if I remember correctly vist reports about 20-25mb/sec transfer over my gigbit network... its definately way faster than when I had 100BT running...

-dave

All WinXP here. My rough calculation of a file transfer here is, on the 100mbps network was about 10mb/sec. On the 1000mbps switch I now get about 31mb/sec.

(That's me timing the transfer of a 1.3gb file by hand.)

I would have to say at that approx rate then you are about on target for optimal network speed for running on 100BT. Ive been giving serious thoughts to switching to fiber on my servers but thats still a pipe dream ATM :P

-dave

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 IF EX DG HSM for Canon

06/19/2008 01:17:05 PM · #9

Sweet, thanks! It's a good feeling to be optimal! :-D

coronamv

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

06/19/2008 01:21:31 PM · #10

Unless your switch or router is capable of jumbo frame relays your will not see a great performance increase in transfering files across your network.

06/19/2008 01:25:38 PM · #11

Originally posted by coronamv:

Unless your switch or router is capable of jumbo frame relays your will not see a great performance increase in transfering files across your network.

Does the Router have anything to do with transfers between machines plugged into the Switch? I figured in that case the Router is out of the picture, and is really only there now as access to the internet and the legacy machines on the 100mbps network. (???)

smurfguy

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

06/19/2008 01:26:33 PM · #12

Somebody has already tried the ramdisk/gigabit ethernet thing (admittedly on older hardware) and only saw ~30MB/sec.

kyebosh

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 80-200mm f/2.8L

06/19/2008 02:03:14 PM · #13

From what I read years ago you shouldn't expect transfer speeds of more than about 60-65% of the maximum claimed speed of the network device. Hard drives could definitely be the limiting factor in gigabit networks afaik.

hankk

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

06/20/2008 12:54:40 PM · #14

Speed is a factor of the slowest path. If you go up to a Gig Ethernet, you may just move the bottleneck to some other part of your system, like the hard disk controller/channel/drive or the Ethernet card.

Are the Gig Ethernet cards you are using "smart" or "dumb"? That is, do they use the PC's Pentium to process info, or do they have an on-board processor? An easy way to tell is that smart cards are normally also usable in Linux systems and Windows servers. Dumb cards generally are not.

Also, the TCP/IP stuff has to be done somewhere, so the Processor, system RAM, and other buss speeds will affect things.

Medoomi

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM

06/20/2008 01:27:39 PM · #15

Originally posted by Strikeslip:

Cool. Is that 31 mb or 31 mB?
Any idea how gigabit ethernet compares to a direct firewire connection?

Message edited by author 2008-06-20 13:28:17.

Canon RF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM

06/20/2008 01:29:56 PM · #16

I just tried a test on mine this am and it was bouncing between 30MB/sec to 33MB/sec...

Venom

Canon EOS R

06/20/2008 02:00:49 PM · #17

Originally posted by Strikeslip:

But we also have a lot of 'store-bought' patch cables without a "5e" lable on them. Will all 5e cable have the 5e label? Is there a way to tell what's not 5e? Does "24 AWG" mean 5e? :-O

I take it the smiley means you are being sarcastic? Or are you asking?
FWIW: AWG = American Wire Gauge; it is the standard method of sizing wire from electrical circuitry(#1AWG) down to communications wiring (24AWG)

06/20/2008 04:11:19 PM · #18

Originally posted by Medoomi:

...Cool. Is that 31 mb or 31 mB?...

oops, that's Bytes, not bits. :-)

06/20/2008 04:15:49 PM · #19

Originally posted by Venom:

Originally posted by Strikeslip:
But we also have a lot of 'store-bought' patch cables without a "5e" lable on them. Will all 5e cable have the 5e label? Is there a way to tell what's not 5e? Does "24 AWG" mean 5e? :-O

I take it the smiley means you are being sarcastic? Or are you asking?
FWIW: AWG = American Wire Gauge; it is the standard method of sizing wire from electrical circuitry(#1AWG) down to communications wiring (24AWG)

I know it's a wire guage, but don't know if all 24 is 5e, or non-5e is thinner? So, yes, I AM that ignorant! :-P