Upgrade network, but not all of it.

I want to increase the throughput between my file server and my main rig. The rest of my network (AP, xbox, Smoothwall, etc) is ok staying with 100mbit speeds.
If I just grab a pair of gigabit cards and directly connect the two with a cross over while leaving the old nics connected to the switch, will I get what I'm looking for?
Essentially I just dont want to pay for a gigabit switch when only two computers need that speed.

Shuruga2 said:

I want to increase the throughput between my file server and my main rig. The rest of my network (AP, xbox, Smoothwall, etc) is ok staying with 100mbit speeds.
If I just grab a pair of gigabit cards and directly connect the two with a cross over while leaving the old nics connected to the switch, will I get what I'm looking for?
Essentially I just dont want to pay for a gigabit switch when only two computers need that speed.

Click to expand...

Yup, that is what I do between my main rig and server, works great!

Well I'm not seeing any speed gains so I must be doing something wrong.

Windows wants to use the gigabit card as the 'main' connection card so when it is enabled I cant use the internet. I am able to access the NAS but the though put is only 7mb/s. (NAS only plugged in to my rig, not the rest of the network).
If I bridge the connections I get internet access back and can still access the NAS, but from the though put logs the NAS is only sending from the non gigabit nic.


Edit: OK finally found where you can specify which nic takes priority.

I've set my network up so that everything has a 192.168.0.X ip but the main and the NAS have secondary Nics on 192.168.1.X. My main rig can access though either subnet but the other computers can only use the first one.

To me this means that the main and Nas must be using the gigabit cards when I'm using the second subnet. When I connect through subnet 0 I average 6.7mb/s, when I connect though subnet 1 I average 8.2mb/s.

so what are you asking?

Shuruga2 said:

Well I'm not seeing any speed gains so I must be doing something wrong.

Click to expand...

That about sums it up. Everything I've read leads me to expect ~40mb/s, 8 really isnt that close and certainly isnt worth the cash for the cards. Am I wrong about the speed?

I've also now tried setting both cards to full duplex with jumbo frames. The driver setting for the card set the jumbo frames to 9014 while the nas will only accept up to 9000. Things seemed to get a little flaky on the windows machine with that setting.

the best ive seen form my gigabitted freenas is about 25MB/s. around double what it did with 100mbit/s.

freenas is notorious for having slow smb performance. teh latest updates (the ones youre having troubles with in the other thread) are suppose to take care of that.

make sure the cards are set to full-duplex (you have) and autonegotiate on both ends. may help.

just to see if its a smb thing or maybe a hardware prob,....what kinda speeds do you get off the NAS over ftp?

and what are your server specs?

I'm using one of these : http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=402&l1=1&l2=2&l3=0
with 1 gig of ram.

I think you've pin pointed my problem. An FTP transfer got me speeds of 25-30 for a 700mb file. I'm even getting 11mb/s using the old nic... I dont suppose I can configure this to use both nics in the same transfer? I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that one already.