LAN transfer rate improvement?

[jtsnow]

Im doing drive image backups over a 100baseT LAN using Norton Ghost from a
PC P4 w/XP to a network storage device.
Looks like the transfer rate over LAN is about 25 Megbit/s and LAN shows 25%
utilization and CPU about 50%. Drive is only being accessed about 1/3 the
time so drive is not limiting the data transfer.

This is a small home LAN with 4 PCs, a NAS and a printer attached.

Is 25 Mbit/s about the best one can reasonably expect to get on a 100 baseT?
Even at that rate, a 44 Gig backup can take a few hours.

Are there ways to easily tweek the LAN to get significant transfer rate
performance improvements? Or is 25% utilization the best I should expect
on a 100mb/s LAN?

Any tips appreciated.

 

[Rod Speed]

Im doing drive image backups over a 100baseT LAN using Norton Ghost from a PC
P4 w/XP to a network storage device.

Looks like the transfer rate over LAN is about 25 Megbit/s and LAN shows 25%
utilization and CPU about 50%. Drive is only being accessed about 1/3 the
time so drive is not limiting the data transfer.

This is a small home LAN with 4 PCs, a NAS and a printer attached.

Is 25 Mbit/s about the best one can reasonably expect to get on a 100 baseT?

With the current Ghost, yes.

The current True Image isnt any better on that.

Even at that rate, a 44 Gig backup can take a few hours.

Are there ways to easily tweek the LAN to get significant transfer rate
performance improvements?

Its not the lan, and you can prove that by doing a simple file transfer.

Or is 25% utilization the best I should expect on a 100mb/s LAN?

Best you can get with the current imaging apps, yes.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Im doing drive image backups over a 100baseT LAN using Norton Ghost from a
PC P4 w/XP to a network storage device.
Looks like the transfer rate over LAN is about 25 Megbit/s and LAN shows 25%
utilization and CPU about 50%. Drive is only being accessed about 1/3 the
time so drive is not limiting the data transfer.

This is a small home LAN with 4 PCs, a NAS and a printer attached.

Is 25 Mbit/s about the best one can reasonably expect to get on a 100 baseT?
Even at that rate, a 44 Gig backup can take a few hours.

Definitiely not! You should get 70-95Mbit/s. I see 93Mbit/s and 4% CPU
load in a quick test with netperf TCP stream here.

Maybe some interrupt conflict? Or is the card used in a polling mode?

Are there ways to easily tweek the LAN to get significant transfer rate
performance improvements? Or is 25% utilization the best I should expect
on a 100mb/s LAN?

Actually you should see far less utilisation. If this is really
utilisation from the network access, then something is wrong.
Even with PIO instead of DMA the card should not eat that much CPU.

One thing you can try is moving the card around (to make it use
a different interrupt). Another is installing current drivers
from the manufaturer.

Arno

 

[Paul Atreides]

Im doing drive image backups over a 100baseT LAN using Norton Ghost from a
PC P4 w/XP to a network storage device.
Looks like the transfer rate over LAN is about 25 Megbit/s and LAN shows 25%
utilization and CPU about 50%. Drive is only being accessed about 1/3 the
time so drive is not limiting the data transfer.

This is a small home LAN with 4 PCs, a NAS and a printer attached.

Is 25 Mbit/s about the best one can reasonably expect to get on a 100 baseT?
Even at that rate, a 44 Gig backup can take a few hours.

Are there ways to easily tweek the LAN to get significant transfer rate
performance improvements? Or is 25% utilization the best I should expect
on a 100mb/s LAN?

Any tips appreciated.

Use a program running under BartPE, like GHOST32.EXE or Drive Snapshot
(wich can run under Windows). You'll get closer to 100% throughput on
FastEthernet.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/pluginhelp/ghost.htm
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

 

[Rod Speed]

Use a program running under BartPE, like GHOST32.EXE or Drive Snapshot
(wich can run under Windows). You'll get closer to 100% throughput on
FastEthernet.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/pluginhelp/ghost.htm
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

The other consideration tho is that more modern apps
do allow incremental images which drastically reduce
the volume that needs to be moved over the lan when
used properly and in the case of ghost32 dont need
to leave Win to do the image creation.

There is a real sense in which the time to create the
image isnt as important when it can be done at the Win
level and you can keep using the system while it happens.

And if you do need the minimum time to create an image,
there is a lot to be said for doing that to a local drive and
then moving the image file to a drive on the lan if you want
to protect against drastic failure of the system being imaged
or theft, fire damage etc of that.

 

[jpsga]

Im doing drive image backups over a 100baseT LAN using Norton Ghost from a
PC P4 w/XP to a network storage device.
Looks like the transfer rate over LAN is about 25 Megbit/s and LAN shows
25% utilization and CPU about 50%. Drive is only being accessed about
1/3 the time so drive is not limiting the data transfer.

This is a small home LAN with 4 PCs, a NAS and a printer attached.

Is 25 Mbit/s about the best one can reasonably expect to get on a 100
baseT? Even at that rate, a 44 Gig backup can take a few hours.

Are there ways to easily tweek the LAN to get significant transfer rate
performance improvements? Or is 25% utilization the best I should expect
on a 100mb/s LAN?

Any tips appreciated.

I do about 30Mbit/s on large files. I believe it is not the tcp/ip but it is
the delays in reading and writing hard drives, buffer size and other
overhead.

Sandra reports about 80 Mbits/s for all my connections using 100Base TX..
JPS

 

[jtsnow]

i was thinking it wasnt the HD accesses becuase the access light is only on
at most about 30% of the time. That tells me its not the HD as the
bottleneck

 

[Rod Speed]

i was thinking it wasnt the HD accesses becuase the access light is only on at
most about 30% of the time. That tells me its not the HD as the bottleneck

Yeah, its certainly ghost.

The evidence for that is that you can move a file over
the lan at the win level with a much higher link utilisation.

 

[jtsnow]

i dont think so.....its the same

Yeah, its certainly ghost.

The evidence for that is that you can move a file over
the lan at the win level with a much higher link utilisation.

 

[Rod Speed]

i dont think so.....its the same

Not here it aint.

Must be something seriously screwed with nic etc.

 

[Peter]

Which version of Ghost?
How is your network storage device connected to network?