Large file transfer

[Larommi]

I moved a huge file to my other computer via my home network and it took forever. I have 10/100 cards and a short crossover. When I run card diags they say that I am connected at 100 full duplex. Is there a good monitor program I can use to test this, or is the slow speed due to the fact that my drives can't read and write fast enough? Just curious.

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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.

Windows 2000 and NT have performance monitors that measure network throughput. I'm not sure about 98..

start/run/perfmon

what kind of switch do you have?

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=-iateyourcat-=

[xsrvx]

It could be the hard drives are bottlenecking,the best way to tell is to run the network monitors but the hard drive speed does play a part in moving data across a wire.

You will never get a full 100mb transfer on a normal desktop machine yet. The hard drive can't go that fast. Two thoughts, have you considered getting a small switch and you may want to force down the connection speed to 10mb. If one of the cards is having a problem with 100mb it can cause a problem like this.

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Born to Network

[Larommi]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by iamtheman:
You will never get a full 100mb transfer on a normal desktop machine yet. The hard drive can't go that fast. Two thoughts, have you considered getting a small switch and you may want to force down the connection speed to 10mb. If one of the cards is having a problem with 100mb it can cause a problem like this.

</font>

Both cards are the same thing and I know that in network properties I can force a slower connection. The more I think about it the more I think the drives are a bottle neck but it still took longer that it would have had the drives been in the same machine. I think I found a network monitor program that I will try when I get home.


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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.

it's not the hard drive. fast ethernet=100mb/s=12.5MB/s ..with standards like ATA100 and Ultra160 reaching 100MB/s and 160MB/s peaks, i'm sure your common hard drives can sustain 13MB/s throughput.

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/...sk/ds60gxp.htm <-- see sustained data rate.

unless your on a switch, you absolutely can't run full duplex. your card may be in full duplex mode and you may pass data but you'll lose lots of frames and get lots of errors and it'll run like crap if it runs at all. i run 100mb half duplex on my switch and it runs better than full.. it's a cheap switch.. now if it was a cisco and I paid 10K for it I'd be pissed.

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=-iateyourcat-=

[This message has been edited by iateyourcat (edited December 29, 2000).]

[Larommi]

I will keep that in mind when I get a hub...I will pay the extra for a switch....thanks!!




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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.

[korpse]

getting a switch would not improve your situation. Connect to NICs via a crossover cable is the FASTEST way to transfer data. Using a switch would at best give you the same performance.
You might want to get some quality NICs such as an 3com etherlink xl, intel etherexpress, or even a netgear ea310tx. They will all run fine at 100tx/full duplex when connected with a crossover to each other.

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"You dumb bastard...it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat!"

i agree with korpse...do a crossover...i did that and since, my home network has been transferring fast! if that doesn't help, i'm not sure if this will, but try getting a router...my friend has one in his home network and that network is the fastest thing i've ever seen...instant transfer. cost him a few hundred bucks though.

another thing to consider...what are you doing while the transfer is occuring...checking email, surfing, playin diablo??? if you are accessing either the source OR destination drive during the transfer it could be this multitasking that is slowing things down...
i just finished transfering 3.5gb worth of mp3s using a 3com 10mb/sec hub and netgear 310txs in under 20 minutes...of course i walked away from the machine during the transfer...just my $.02

[This message has been edited by jrwilson (edited January 05, 2001).]

[Larommi]

I am using a crossover. Both machines remained unused during the transfer. I had not rebooted the machines in a while and when I had to reboot I tried the transfer again and it was much faster. I also defragged the source drive which had not been done in over a year. Thanks for the replies!!

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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.

[cyberhh]

Before you waste money on a "switch" or intelligent hub please give us more information - how large is the file that you are transfering and how long does it take to xfer it? Also a xover cable should be the fastest form of communication between two 100 Mb nodes - shortest cable lengths and eliminates the added speed overhead of the switch routing to the other machine.

If you are able to xfer between 7 and 12 MB / min then your cat5 link is operating correclty. Factors such as other running tasks, avail. memory and disk drive speed can and will affect network preformance, so if you are not hitting the 7-12MB/Min target then please include as much other information as you can with the next post. Thanks.

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Death is lighter than a feather - duty heavier than a mountian.

[Larommi]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by cyberhh:
Before you waste money on a "switch" or intelligent hub please give us more information - how large is the file that you are transfering and how long does it take to xfer it? Also a xover cable should be the fastest form of communication between two 100 Mb nodes - shortest cable lengths and eliminates the added speed overhead of the switch routing to the other machine.

If you are able to xfer between 7 and 12 MB / min then your cat5 link is operating correclty. Factors such as other running tasks, avail. memory and disk drive speed can and will affect network preformance, so if you are not hitting the 7-12MB/Min target then please include as much other information as you can with the next post. Thanks.

</font>

The folder that I was transfering was 1gb of .Mp3's and it took almost 5 hours. I could have slaved up the drive faster than that. I think I solved the problem, cause when I did some routine maintainance things worked better. Thanks for the extra input, but I am not buying anything new right now. I have not had time to play so this is not a big issue anymore.



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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.