Slow transfers over network?

[bLack0ut]

I have a local network that consists of a setup like this.

My computer (10/100, seagate 320 GB 7200.9) connected to a buffalo whr-g125 running dd-wrt(not very customized yet) connected to a p1 mmx 233 mhz with a rosewill pci sata controller connected to a seagate 500GB 7200.10 AK. Everything is wired atm.

I've been doing some file transfers, and the speeds are kind of slow. Can anyone point out the bottleneck here?

EDIT: My computer is running WinXP, and the file server is running OpenBSD + Samba.

[tri8g]

Has it always been slow? Or is this a recent development?

If transfers were always slow, it might have something to do with that 10 year old computer you're trying to serve from...

Even so, I don't see why you're still using that, let alone using a SATA card in it. Seems like a waste. Not saying using something state of the art, but at least something that wasn't Made For Windows 95.

[bLack0ut]

Well, I just set the server up. It was free, so I figured I would spend 5 bucks on a sata card and see how it ran. I was wondering whether or not the network or the server itself was the bottleneck.

[mbentley]

Well, I just set the server up. It was free, so I figured I would spend 5 bucks on a sata card and see how it ran. I was wondering whether or not the network or the server itself was the bottleneck.

i would imagine that the bus speed of the pentium 233 mhz machine would heavily limit the potential transfer rate...

[bLack0ut]

Ah damn. What performance gains would I see if I upgrade to an athlon xp 2400+ or something similar?

It also only has 128 mb ram. Would I see any large performance gains if I make it 256?

[tri8g]

Should be phenomenal.

[bLack0ut]

Can you give me some sort of figure? Like 10x faster or something?

Also, which one would be phenomenal, the extra ram or different processor?

[tri8g]

Newer CPU. There's no amount of RAM you can add to that dinosaur to really make it a good server - at least not with the amount of performance you're looking for. I really can't tell you how much of a gain it will give you with a figure because I don't know just how poor it is running now. With that Athlon XP 2400+, though, it'll be more than able to do the job.

[Madwand]

I've been doing some file transfers, and the speeds are kind of slow. Can anyone point out the bottleneck here?


What do you mean by "kind of slow" -- what's the actual transfer rate, and how are you testing and measuring?

A typical 100 Mb/s network is going to be limited by the network, not the computers, and hit anywhere up to around 10 MB/s actual file throughput. With gigabit, this can go up to around 30 MB/s typically, but hitting that with such ancient gear is very unlikely.

[bLack0ut]

What do you mean by "kind of slow" -- what's the actual transfer rate, and how are you testing and measuring?

A typical 100 Mb/s network is going to be limited by the network, not the computers, and hit anywhere up to around 10 MB/s actual file throughput. With gigabit, this can go up to around 30 MB/s typically, but hitting that with such ancient gear is very unlikely.

Ah, thanks. I'm actually just eyeballing the figure while transferring files, ranging from 3mb to 6gb in size. Windows says x amount of time is remaining, so I use that as the time it takes to transfer x amount.

Using that method, I've found I'm getting about 5 MB/s, so I don't think the network is the problem (although it is 100 Mb/s). Also, I am also running uTorrent in the background, writing to a hard drive on the file server, so in essence, having two write threads. In that case, does 5 MB/s seem reasonable?

Relating to the gigabit network, both my router and my computer are g, but the adapter on the fileserver is b. If I upgrade to g, will the file server itself bottleneck the potential 30 MB/s?

[Madwand]

I'm actually just eyeballing the figure while transferring files, ranging from 3mb to 6gb in size. Windows says x amount of time is remaining, so I use that as the time it takes to transfer x amount.

Using that method, I've found I'm getting about 5 MB/s, so I don't think the network is the problem (although it is 100 Mb/s). Also, I am also running uTorrent in the background, writing to a hard drive on the file server, so in essence, having two write threads. In that case, does 5 MB/s seem reasonable?

5 MB/s is reasonable for 100 Mb/s networking when you have small files mixed into this and concurrent drive access. Another way of looking at it is that it's about 1/2 the maximum performance, so it's in the ballpark, and not too bad.


Relating to the gigabit network, both my router and my computer are g, but the adapter on the fileserver is b. If I upgrade to g, will the file server itself bottleneck the potential 30 MB/s?

Now you've confused me. We were talking about wired networking (100 Mb/s and then gigabit). "g" "b" and "n" are wireless terms. Wireless is generally much slower than wired. Even the latest & greatest "n" will struggle to match 100 Mb/s wired performance, never mind "g" and the ancient "b".

Gigabit networking and wireless routers / etc., are pretty much separate topics -- only the switch part of such wireless routers counts for gigabit, and you can even forget about the router and just add an inexpensive gigabit switch such as the D-Link DGS-2208.

However, if you're not even maxing 100 Mb/s networking (which you would at around 10 MB/s large file transfers), the odds of materially improving performance by going to gigabit are not good.

If you're willing to ditch it all and build a new machine for the server, we could give some more advice. It doesn't have to be very expensive, but would be a couple of hundred at least. I don't think I'd recommend adding a gigabit switch and NIC to that machine at this point.

[bLack0ut]

Ha, I got too lazy to keep typing gigabit so I just typed "g". I meant gigabit :)

The reason I said 5 MB/s might be good was because in addition to me manually copying files over, uTorrent was also running the background, writing to the same hard drive on that file server. So in essence, was the total transfer speed 10 MB/s ?

Btw, I realized my router is only 10/100 (whr-g125), so I probably won't upgrade.