Gigabit networks,transfer speed and YOU

RoundBoy

I have a home network set up like :

Server & desktop with 1000mb NICs connected to a 1000mb switch that supports Jumbo Frames.

One port of this switch is connected to a port of a 24 port 100mb switch, that has the rest of the house connected to it (3 tivos, ps3).

Also connected to this switch is the router for the house (linsys 54g w/ tomato firmware)

Transfers between the server and desktop are (according to Vista) are averaging 10Mb/sec .. and it took HOURS to transfer a total of 140gb to backup in preperation to rebuild the server.

I think this is not nearly transfering at the potential of my network, and I started playing with frame sizes / mtu settings, etc.. but to no avail. The only result of this was the same transfer speed, but it started to screw with my ssh sessions, causing some random freezes..

1) Is there a better way to hook all of this together ?
2) What is the proper frame size / mtu I should be using
3) does the fact that any non gigabit speed devices exist on the network kill my speed ?

Dark Shroud

The non-gigabyte devices shouldn't affect the speed. Do you have auto-negotiation turned on? Full Duplex should also be set to auto or on. See if you have colusion detection on, if so disable it.

If you can I would suggest plugging the PS3 into the gigabyte as well, I upgradded to gigabyte just for streaming video to my PS3.

Nandaji

Make sure the ethernet cables connected to ur desktop and server are cat 5e or 6.. regular cat 5 wont cut it for gigabit speeds. You can check by reading the print on the cables.

warmep

Are you using Vista SP1? According to MS, SP1 improves performance over Windows Vista’s current performance across the following scenarios:

* 25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine
* 45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system
* 50% faster when copying files from a remote SP1 system to a local SP1 system

RoundBoy

I forgot the ps3 is gigabit .. I will plug that in shortly.

All cables between switches / router are factory crimped cat-5e 2' . all the rest is cat-5e bulk crimped my myself, but wired up to spec. (and tested )

I am on Sp1 ... and from what I understand, it solved a lot of problems people had in the past with speeds, but I could have sworn i transfered faster in the past.

I upped the max frame size on the desktop to 8992 .. and upped the mtu of the server... whenever i screw with the vista mtu it screws with the internet and other connectivity.

Other samba tweaks have upped my final speed to 11 Mb/sec . still pretty slow in my opinion.


EDIT: or at least i would if i could find my painstakingly created list mapping every line to what port its connected to. Dammit.

RoundBoy

False alarm.. I am a god damn idiot.

In pulling selected ports to see what was ps3... i discovered that the ps3 WAS in fact connected . but my desktop was miswired.

all my bulk runs go to a 24 port punch down, and those ports in turn are matched to the same # port on the 100 mb switch.. '18' was my desktop, but i put '16' into the damn 1000mb switch.

fixed, and now transfers are speeding along at 28-30 mb/sec. *sigh*

DasHanselHM

What kind of Gigabit switch is it?

Dark Shroud

Well at least you got it figured out.

I have a small D-Link gigabyte switch that I plug into a Linksys Firewall NAT router. Eventually I'll buy some large Asus Gigabyte switches like my cousin did.

FaceballMcDougal

writes to the hard drive are going to be the bottleneck at this point

the nice thing about gigabit networking is that you can have a lot of stuff going through that same pipe... and servers with data in memory can send content out pretty fast

we just ran CAT6 in our new suites for when 10gbit starts being the standard... that's going to be insane

RoundBoy

DasHanselHM wrote: »

What kind of Gigabit switch is it?

Netgear GS608

I would just simply love a 24 port 1000mbt managed switch.. but the money is better spent towards my "xenon + TB raid server fund"

A boy can dream.

Actually.. despite the 'jumbo frames' support .. setting the mtu & frame sizes of everything to a straight 9000 or 8992 (i dunno if it needs to account for overhead) I see some nice burst speeds, but overall transfer speed is LOWER then leaving the MTU @ 1500 for all devices on the 1000mbit switch.

31 MB/sec from the server 42 MB/sec to the server from Vista. This is over Samba, so I read that I am damn lucky to see those speeds. I have yet to set up iperf or to test raw speeds over FTP .. I have no doubt that I'll see full use of the pipe.

It actually jives with what I read. 10 to 100mbit is a HUGE jump .. but 100 --> 1000 only results in a 2-5x increase .. which is exactly what I saw moving the port.. 10 Mb/sec to 30-40

wunderbar

oh, and FYI, if your switch is smart enough, you don't need to have a seperate 100mbit switch for your devices not capable of gigabit speeds. A good switch can auto configure each port to run at the max possible speed, so two gigabit devices on the switch can go at gigabit speeds while at the same time a 100mbit device is churning away. autonegotiatoin.

RoundBoy

wunderbar wrote: »

oh, and FYI, if your switch is smart enough, you don't need to have a seperate 100mbit switch for your devices not capable of gigabit speeds. A good switch can auto configure each port to run at the max possible speed, so two gigabit devices on the switch can go at gigabit speeds while at the same time a 100mbit device is churning away. autonegotiatoin.

I need a seperate switch because I have too many. 24 port punchdown takes all the lines from the house.. and i map that 1:1 to a 24 port dlink. I have about 12 lines run currently (not all in use, mostly for future use)

The only exception is those going from block -->gigabit vs block --> 100mb
My netgear isn't too smart, but I would still love a nice managed switch at full speed.

DasHanselHM

Managed switches are great, the company I work for did an upgrade of a campus wide network for a school that has ES, MS, and HS all in one building. We replaced their Cisco 4000 series core switch with (it was either 4 or 5) stacked Cisco 3750E-48TD switches. Dear lord was it a sight to behold. I would argue that they could have chosen a better core, but it at least has lots of room.