Improving Home Network Speeds

[skozzy]

Apart from 10/100/1000 Lan speeds, what can be done for the home network to get faster then 1000.

I see some Mainboards have two Lan port, does this mean they can transfer a file 2x faster if both are connected to a router.

I ask cause I have put together an old computer as a file server sharing with FTP and Windows File Share. Speeds are ok, but nothing to write home about.

If I use up some of the left over PCI slots and put in more 10/100/1000 network cards will I get a bit more out of the network.

If that doesnt work, then what can I do or what do I need to get past the gigabit speed limit from lan. It will also need to work on Vista and Linux if it requires some new hardware.

[ssrattus]

A few things to check first:

1. One problem is that Vista has a bug that causes file transfers to be abysmally slow. It was meant to have been fixed with SP1, so first up are you using Vista SP1? There are a few other "fixes" that may increase Vista file transfer speeds see but they may not be as important if you are using SP1.

2. Are all LAN interfaces Gigabyte? A Gigabyte connected to anything slower will only run at the slower speed for that connection.

3. Firewall... if you have a software based firewall it can slow down transfers, try with it switched off.

4. Hub, switch or router? Use either a switch or a router. A hub is a "stupid" device, and will flood all devices connected to it with all the network traffic therefore increasing the likelihood of data collisions. The extra ports on an ADSL modem are a hub.

5. The hard disks in your old computer may be a bottleneck.

6. Do you have Nvidia Network Access Manager installed? Reports are that is can be very slow.

7. Give Teracopy a try "TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features"

[rob916]

You will need a gigabit switch or router, otherwise all your fast ethernet cards are a waste of time.

[Pugs]

only thing faster then "1GB/s" on copper is fibre and it gets expensive very quickly

[skozzy]

I have Vista 32bit SP1, file transfers are 30mb/sec+ I have a Gigabit switch.

If the mainboard has 2 gigabit sockets, and both plugged into a gigabit switch, and another computer with 2 gigabit networks on the other end, will this mean it will xfer data at double the speed of gigabit.

Or is there another networking method thats faster then gigabit (like Pugs mentioned Copper Fibre), don't know what it is so some explaination of what other methods are and how they work.

[mtv]

I can't see any benefit of a home network faster than 1 gigabit.. what are you trying to do?

[skozzy]

Im sure I explained this clear enough, I will try again.

Will a main board with 2 gigabit network ports both plugged in to a gigabit switch be able to xfer data 2x faster then a single gigabit lan connection.

Im not trying anything, at least not yet. So does it work and is it faster ?

[fandtm666]

no each one would download a single file each at the maximum available speed

[urban_s0ulja]

not entirely true unless your the networking chipset has teaming(i think thats the term) and also if it is supported by your switch. Only then will you get the benefit of 2 network ports on one computer.

secondly you will see a bottle neck in how fast your hard drives can read/write data to be sent accross the actual network.

[jimbo123]

I thought there were options around combining, or teaming, multiple network adaptors together in an aggregate manner, to perform as one with a combined throughput. Never seen it done,.. have only gone the fault tolerant teaming path myself.

IntelPro stuff springs to mind, but I'd imagine most of the others also provide teaming software.

I think you can benefit by doing so in that you can sustain more throughput from multiple connections/transfers,.. but as 666 says, I'd expect that any single connection/transfer would only communicate via a single adaptor.

Maybe some of the above might be useful.

Cheers,

Jim.....

[Pugs]

Or is there another networking method thats faster then gigabit (like Pugs mentioned Copper Fibre), don't know what it is so some explaination of what other methods are and how they work.

it is either copper ie Cat5e/6/7 or Fibre optic cables.. tho they very expensive...


the above mentioned speeds 30-40mb/s "transfer" speeds factors in read and write speeds of the transmission and receiving Hard drives.... plus other network traffic.

the truely only thing that would improve this would to get SSD's (solid state Drives) as they have faster read writes times but they are also expensive.....

ina perfect workd where all hard drives where SSD's we would see faster transfer times

[astro_boy]

You could hook up as many nics into your computer as you wanted.
But they would all have diff IPs so they could only copy the one file at the one nics max speed, like above.

Some things to think about.
hard drives, age, speed, conenction, ide, sata?
pc itself, processing speed,
network cards, network switch, network cable, home made cable?
Type of cable, Cable runs, Interference ?

and how are you mesureing your 30mb/s speeds ?

I might have missed something.

[mickc]

what are the specs of the server
do you have the ide drivers installed
30m/s isnt to bad for a older system
your pci is your next choke

[skozzy]

Ok, so for basic file sharing a single gigabit nic is the best we can do at home. I thought there was more that can be done.

So there is Ethernet, Wireless, Copper, and Optical. Is that it ? What are ISPs using to get the bandwidth they have and is that technology outside the reach of the home.

[Pugs]

Ok, so for basic file sharing a single gigabit nic is the best we can do at home. I thought there was more that can be done.

So there is Ethernet, Wireless, Copper, and Optical. Is that it ? What are ISPs using to get the bandwidth they have and is that technology outside the reach of the home.

Ethernet is Copper ie cat5e and Cat6 most two common types of cable.... and the only real difference betwene the two is that Cat6 has a center core of platic that ensures the seperation of the twisted pairs which makes it a real bugger to install. i can post you pic if you want....i also happen to have a sample of some Cat7

there is Cat7 but it is very expensive at $5+/m not to mention it has each pair shielded and a propritiy type connector at like $5/ line connector and upwards of $20/ wall plate socket. Cat7 is being used mainly by the roads people here in SA and i guess other places to run their "traffic" monitoring cameras and such

ISP's use the copper in the telstra conduits and pits to get it to our houses but they are using fibre to get it to each exchnag via the varioues tech nologies of Dslams and such it is very technical and not really worth my time putting it out there....


till there is FTtN fibre to the Node and or more preferable FTtH fiber to the Home we the consumer will be stuck with services under 24mb/s to our homes Unless your on Cable and you can get faster speeds for a while yet, but if anyne builds a house from now on you should future proof the telecon line in cable conduit with a seperate pull string to bring that lovley fiber cable into the house.

wirleess is a Joke for file transfer, would be faster to just to move the computer back and forward each time.....

[statesmanjeff]

Another alternative is a network cable called Lexcom.
Still not cert yet but better than tyco's cat7e cable.
try
I have this thru my house and its a good cheaper copper alternative.
Fully shielded metal jacks, no tool required to terminate.
you dont need to use their hardware just the cable and jacks for each end.

You can load share thru multiple nic's
When i did my W2000mcse back about 2002 it was one of the subjects ( cant remember how now) but it can be done. or could with 10/100 to get massive amounts thru from one server to another during replications.