Networking Transfer Speed Issue

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Guest

How is it that a home network with a router and NICs with 100MBit/sec
transfer rating can barely transfer among the PCs on the network
faster than <100kbit/sec? I cannot figure out where the ratings for
these components come from with these types of terrible transfer
rates. What determines the transfer rates when all components have
100megbit ratings? There are three PCs running XPHome SP2.

Henry
 
How is it that a home network with a router and NICs with 100MBit/sec
transfer rating can barely transfer among the PCs on the network
faster than <100kbit/sec? I cannot figure out where the ratings for
these components come from with these types of terrible transfer
rates. What determines the transfer rates when all components have
100megbit ratings? There are three PCs running XPHome SP2.

Henry
Click to expand...

My first guess is that the transfers are going out over the WAN, instead
of being confined to your LAN. Remove the connection between your
router and the WAN (probably a cable between the router's uplink port
and a cable or DSL modem), and see if the transfer rate improves a lot.

Then too, remember that 100 Mb/s is the peak data rate, not the STR
(Sustained Transfer Rate). Every little piece between the source PC's
HD and the target PC's HD can degrade the STR for file transfers;
sometimes a lot.

On my 100 Mb/s LAN (thru a Linksys router), I get 9-10 MB/s STRs when
transferring between XP PCs - acceptably close to 100 Mb/s.
 
My first guess is that the transfers are going out over the WAN, instead
of being confined to your LAN. Remove the connection between your
router and the WAN (probably a cable between the router's uplink port
and a cable or DSL modem), and see if the transfer rate improves a lot.

Then too, remember that 100 Mb/s is the peak data rate, not the STR
(Sustained Transfer Rate). Every little piece between the source PC's
HD and the target PC's HD can degrade the STR for file transfers;
sometimes a lot.

On my 100 Mb/s LAN (thru a Linksys router), I get 9-10 MB/s STRs when
transferring between XP PCs - acceptably close to 100 Mb/s.
Click to expand...


Maybe its technique rather than hardware. I did as you suggested: I
closed my connection to the internet and closed all the respective
Zone Alarms. What I had been doing is transfering subdirectories with
content files. When I went in and just cut and pasted the files, the
transfers were up to speeds I expected. When I try and transfer a
whole subdirectory, it actually hangs. Why is that?

Henry
 
Maybe its technique rather than hardware. I did as you suggested: I
closed my connection to the internet and closed all the respective
Zone Alarms. What I had been doing is transfering subdirectories with
content files. When I went in and just cut and pasted the files, the
transfers were up to speeds I expected. When I try and transfer a
whole subdirectory, it actually hangs. Why is that?

Henry
Click to expand...


Ah, problem resolved. The NICs were set to auto-negotiate the transfer
speed on the network. This was broken or stuck. I changed this setting
to force a particular speed and experimented with full and
half-duplex. Turns out I get good transfer speeds when the NICs are
set to 100MBit/sec half duplex. The Autonegotiation seems to be
working again, too. A hint from a web site pointed me toward this as a
potential fix. If we expect the default settings to work all the time,
sometimes that is the problem...we need to nudge things back on track.

Henry
 
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