Ethernet to USB 2.0 is very slow

  • Thread starter Thread starter jtsnow
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jtsnow

When I send data over ethernet to a drive running on the USB 2.0 its very
slow. This is PC to PC over 100baseT wired home LAN to do disk backups.
The slowness occurs in the translation from 10baseT100 to the USB 2.0 and
the CPU is 100% utilized.

Are there cards that offload the CPU processing needed to do this
translation?

I have a PCI combo card (w/firewire), brand new installed.

The following clues narrow the problem down to the USB to ethernet
conversion as the problem.:

PC to PC over ethernet from installed HD to installed HD is very fast.
PC from its own C: drive to the USB 2.0 drive is very fast.
but when do PC to PC over ethernet to save data on theh USB 2.0 drive its
very very slow...like 5x slower then drive C: to USB 2.0.

Any thoughts?
 
| When I send data over ethernet to a drive running on the USB 2.0 its very
| slow. This is PC to PC over 100baseT wired home LAN to do disk backups.
| The slowness occurs in the translation from 10baseT100 to the USB 2.0 and
| the CPU is 100% utilized.
|
| Are there cards that offload the CPU processing needed to do this
| translation?
|
| I have a PCI combo card (w/firewire), brand new installed.
|
| The following clues narrow the problem down to the USB to ethernet
| conversion as the problem.:
|
| PC to PC over ethernet from installed HD to installed HD is very fast.
| PC from its own C: drive to the USB 2.0 drive is very fast.
| but when do PC to PC over ethernet to save data on theh USB 2.0 drive its
| very very slow...like 5x slower then drive C: to USB 2.0.
|
| Any thoughts?
|
|

Take the drive out of it's usb enclosure and go scsi? :-)

--
 
jtsnow said:
When I send data over ethernet to a drive running on the USB 2.0 its very
slow. This is PC to PC over 100baseT wired home LAN to do disk backups.
The slowness occurs in the translation from 10baseT100 to the USB 2.0 and
the CPU is 100% utilized.

Are there cards that offload the CPU processing needed to do this
translation?

I have a PCI combo card (w/firewire), brand new installed.

The following clues narrow the problem down to the USB to ethernet
conversion as the problem.:

PC to PC over ethernet from installed HD to installed HD is very fast.
PC from its own C: drive to the USB 2.0 drive is very fast.
but when do PC to PC over ethernet to save data on theh USB 2.0 drive its
very very slow...like 5x slower then drive C: to USB 2.0.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Wouldn't it be easier just to plug the USB drive directly into the other PC?

SteveH
 
You can get a Linksys Network Storage Link For USB 2.0 Disk Drive and link
the drive directly to the network. I have found that writing to a USB 2.0
drive is very fast so i doubt that's your problem. The LAN is always going
to be the rate limiting factor.

How much new data do you produce each day anyway? If you did a backup of
what's changed then it would be pretty quick however slow the copy process
is. Take a look at SyncBack:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/assets/software/syncback_setup.zip
It's freeware and very nice.

Ian
 
your wrong.....look at the original posting...the tests I did prove it...its
the ethernet to USB connection thats slow. ethernet is fast....USB 2 is
fast...but when using both on same pc its.....SLOOWWWWWW.

Linksys unit is a piece of shit...wont format drives over 250gb, 1/2 as fast
as ethernet save to a installed drive, does a non standard format to the
disk so it wont be recognized by a windows machine when plugged in direct
 
| your wrong.....look at the original posting...the tests I did
| prove it...its the ethernet to USB connection thats slow. ethernet
| is fast....USB 2 is fast...but when using both on same pc its.....
| SLOOWWWWWW.
|
| Linksys unit is a piece of shit...wont format drives over 250gb, 1/2
| as fast as ethernet save to a installed drive, does a non standard
| format to the disk so it wont be recognized by a windows machine when
| plugged in direct
|

USB 2 might seem fast to you in terms of it's throughput, yet it's
a known offender for hogging the cpu and bus. It's speed comes at a
price.

Also, while you didn't say exactly what Nic you are using, many of
them can also be bus hogs, especially if it's on chipsets they don't
like.

Put them together, and the problem is that you've crippled your system
with two hogs that probably weren't designed to play nice with each
other. Or at least not on your particular mainboard. Backups run slow
because there's not much processing power left over.

The answer? While you may find some other model of Nic that works
better for you, it would be more dependable to switch away from using
USB storage. There are co-processed scsi and ide interfaces available
which would give you the same (or better) throughput while picking up
a lot of the associated system load.
--
 
yea..that makes a lot of sense. Im going to abandone this and at least got
a IDE installed HD for backups. thats probably simplest for me. THe usb
thing work fine for a single PC, but over a network...were talking some
MAJOR suckass for the reasons you provided.
thanks.nice answere
 
jtsnow said:
When I send data over ethernet to a drive running on the USB 2.0 its very
slow. This is PC to PC over 100baseT wired home LAN to do disk backups.
The slowness occurs in the translation from 10baseT100 to the USB 2.0 and
the CPU is 100% utilized.

Are there cards that offload the CPU processing needed to do this
translation?

I have a PCI combo card (w/firewire), brand new installed.

The following clues narrow the problem down to the USB to ethernet
conversion as the problem.:

PC to PC over ethernet from installed HD to installed HD is very fast.
PC from its own C: drive to the USB 2.0 drive is very fast.
but when do PC to PC over ethernet to save data on theh USB 2.0 drive its
very very slow...like 5x slower then drive C: to USB 2.0.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
USB controller and LAN on the same interrupt?
 
.USB 2 is
fast...but when using both on same pc its.....SLOOWWWWWW.
Click to expand...

USB + networking = Trouble. The CPU must control all data flow through
the USB cable. Since unlike Firewire, USB is dumb.
 
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