Only about 40mbps through LAN

 
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rrinc
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Joined: 24 Feb 2006
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Location: Arkansas, USA

PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:42 am    Post subject: Only about 40mbps through LAN Reply with quote

I'm only getting about 40mbps (megabits per second) through my LAN. I discovered this by transferring a large file (Linux ISO) and monitoring the download rate for about a minute. Should'nt it be possible to get more? All my stuff supports 100mbps (I know getting 100mbps isn't guaranteed, but surely something more than 40mbps).

My router:
P3 500Mhz, 192MB RAM, with 2 10/100 3com NICs and running M0n0wall.

All my computers have 10/100 ethernet. I'm using a few 3ft cables and a 100ft cable.

Whats the bottleneck here? Is it the 500Mhz P3?...by router standards I was thinking that its overkill, but I don't know.

What kinds of speeds do you all get?
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AbyssUnderground
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It depends how you are transferring it. Via Samba (SMB), which is the standard windows transfer protocol you will use over a network, it will be quite slow because it isn't a very efficient transfer method.

FTP however will transfer much much quicker, as its a file transfer protocol, its designed for it.

HTTP might not reach the high speeds of FTP either without using a download manager to open multiple connections.

The other bottleneck could simply be poor hardware. If it was cheap then it may not be able to handle such high speeds. For example its processor may become overloaded before the data connection.
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aprelium
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Only about 40mbps through LAN Reply with quote

rrinc,

Try disabling the firewall software at first. It can sometimes be the cause of slow speeds.

Are you sure your 100 Mbit connection is full duplex? If one of your NIC cards is half-duplex, the others will downgrade to the half-duplex mode too.

The protocol you use may also add its overhead. TCP/IP is the first to do so. If you transfer a packet with 1 KB of payload, you are actually transferring 1 KB + a few extra bytes as the TCP/IP header. On large exchanges, these extra bytes add up and will take 10 to 20% of the available bandwidth.
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AbyssUnderground
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:52 pm    Post subject: Re: Only about 40mbps through LAN Reply with quote

aprelium wrote:
Are you sure your 100 Mbit connection is full duplex? If one of your NIC cards is half-duplex, the others will downgrade to the half-duplex mode too.


I don't think this applies behind a router/switch, only on direct connections.
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rrinc
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It wasn't Windows file sharing (I wish, 40mbps would be insane...I get horrible speeds with wfs). I transferred the file through http (using Abyss), it was the only thing running and there was no other significant network traffic.

The NICs are 3com Etherlink XLs in the router and the computers I tested the file transfer between have onboard 10/100/1000. (motherboards: Abit NF-M2 and Gigabyte P35-DS3L)
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aprelium
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rrinc,

According to our tests, it will be difficult to saturate a 100 Mbit link with a 500 MHz computer. But the next generation of Abyss Web Server will be able to deliver a faster speed (about 20% to 50% faster, it depends on the hardware and the OS).
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rrinc
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you think its the router then I might consider switching the router computer over to a 1Ghz AMD Duron if I can get it to work. Do you really think it would make much of a difference? I know RAM isn't the issue, the router reports only using 14% (of 192MB).
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olly86
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You might find that the speed is limited by the rate that the hard drive at either end of the connection was able to read / write the data.
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AbyssUnderground
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

olly86 wrote:
You might find that the speed is limited by the rate that the hard drive at either end of the connection was able to read / write the data.


I highly doubt it can only read at 4MB/s (40Mbps).
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olly86
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AbyssUnderground wrote:
olly86 wrote:
You might find that the speed is limited by the rate that the hard drive at either end of the connection was able to read / write the data.


I highly doubt it can only read at 4MB/s (40Mbps).


One of my drives on it's way out read at those kinds of speeds.
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AbyssUnderground
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

olly86 wrote:
AbyssUnderground wrote:
olly86 wrote:
You might find that the speed is limited by the rate that the hard drive at either end of the connection was able to read / write the data.


I highly doubt it can only read at 4MB/s (40Mbps).


One of my drives on it's way out read at those kinds of speeds.


How old is the drive? I've never heard of any drive from the last 10 years not being able to cope with such a slow speed.
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olly86
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AbyssUnderground wrote:
olly86 wrote:
AbyssUnderground wrote:
olly86 wrote:
You might find that the speed is limited by the rate that the hard drive at either end of the connection was able to read / write the data.


I highly doubt it can only read at 4MB/s (40Mbps).


One of my drives on it's way out read at those kinds of speeds.


How old is the drive? I've never heard of any drive from the last 10 years not being able to cope with such a slow speed.


About 12 months, the manufacturer agreed to replace it as the drive was defective.
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AbyssUnderground
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

olly86 wrote:
About 12 months, the manufacturer agreed to replace it as the drive was defective.


Thats a different story then. We are assuming this drive is OK and is capable of normal speeds of 40MB/s+ (400Mbps+)
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rrinc
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My drives are definitely ok. All are less than a year old and SATAII. I haven't had any problems with any of them.
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