Does 2 x 1 gigabit network cards on a home server make a difference?

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

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As title, I just built a home server with a standard network card built into the mainboard at 1gigabit.

Now it will be serving upto 5-6 computers at once, will an additional pci-e network card (giving it 2x gigabit connectors into the gigabit 8 port hub) make any difference?

Would it fully utilize both connectors or even off load traffic across them both ?

Server OS is windows 7
 
You'd need to use teaming and have a switch that supports LACP for it to be of benefit, I would imagine that having 2 connections plugged in could cause wierd network activity.

What is it your transferring across the network? If it's just streaming then 1 gb nic will be fine.
 
Not only what Viper said... you'd also need hardware in the server that could support simultaneous data access at those kind of speeds.

If you're talking about dedicated hard drive per computer... then you may see a benefit from teaming... if they're all pulling from the same drive/raid array... then it would have to be something above average for you to see real transfer speeds of over 100MB/s
 
Cool thanks, well at the moment network copy speed from my main pc to my new server hovers between 30-50mb/s not great, but not that bad, that with windows 7 installed, server 2008 r2 was 10mb/s, clearly a driver issue.

But yeah the best speed I can get is using windows 7.

I just have 2TB of files to transfer now (as my main pc used to be the server also) and thats going to take days at average 35mb/sec :(

My network hardware is a belkin N draft router 1 gigabit and thats attached to a Netgear 8 port switch of some sort that all the other computers are connected to.

If I wanted to replace my router and switch whats the decent hardware of choice that would play well together and push 100mb/s easily?
 
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You'll only push 100mb if your HDDs are fast enough at either end. My server and PC both have striped drives in and my PC also has an SSD so my transfers sit at around 110-118 mb/s. Realistically my network is holding back my speed but that's fine with me at those kind of speeds its not an issue currently.
 
Yeah both drives are 2TB WD greens which can hit at least 90MB/s sustained read (I think reviews place it just over 110mb/s), one pc is a 4ghz 6 core, the server is an AMD fusion, anything else limiting it here?

Iv got cat 5e and 1 cat6 cable, but iv just ordered 2x cat 6a cables for the main pc and server, just to check, everyone else will be fine streaming content, but I NEED my own pc and the server to hit at least 80mb/s or more.

The only thing I can think of is cables, and network equipment, the networking utilization on both PC's barely goes over 16-22 %

What gives? Its clearly running at 1gb otherwise I wouldn't go over 10mb/s
 
I've got gigabit network using a procurve switch. I get about 40mbp/s from one laptop to nas, 60-70mbp/s from laptop to desktop.

I'd get a decent switch, and just connect the router into it, you won't need a gig router as your internet will be slower anyway, I get slower speeds through my router than a 100mpb/s switch between devices.

Can I ask why you NEED 80mb/s? At work between servers using teamed intel nics we can get about 130mbp/s but this is with raid 10 arrays and 15k sas drives. What is the network controller as I found Intel to be fastest and marvell and realtek some where in the middle grounds.
 
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Cool good info, yeah I want it that fast as Ill be throwing around a couple of TB per week and such.

I suppose that answers the other question, as the router acts a switch and not a DHCP server, and the belkin assigns IP address's - what happens if I disconnect the belkin, will the switch take over DHCP duties?

And I also want to check as I obviously want to use the belkin as it is, network data isnt being routed via that is it ?
 
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The switch won't act as a dhcp server without a router or other dhcp server on the network. If the computers are plugged into the switch, then I think it will only be initial dns query that will look at the router then the rest will go straight from machine to machine.

I'd look at how you work then if your chucking around that sort of data, If i'm doing anything with massive files, I use RDP onto the server and work on it there.
 
Well yeah its that data now, but id also like high performance once the data is copied (its OCUK we always strive for faster)

So how can I get to at least 80mb/s ?? What hardware? how should I setup my networks ?

Iv been looking at replacing my switch with:

Netgear GS108 8-port Switch

it will only be initial dns query that will look at the router then the rest will go straight from machine to machine.
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This will defo happen ? Its the cheapest gigabit network switch netgear did a few years back, maybe it IS the limiting factor ? I think the GS108 will be better quality though ?

EDIT: its the 4 year old version of the current netgear 8-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH GS608 I have now, but on netgears website I cannot find old versions of there stuff without exact model numbers, ill have to find out when im home
 
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Whats your existing switch? I like the procurve switches. Mine is a Procurve 2824. There's a program that can test transfer between machines but I can't remember name exactly, but think it's like iperf or something.

I've not used a netgear gs108 but have used the 24 port netgear gigabit switches and they work ok.
 
Combat squirrel said:
Iv got cat 5e and 1 cat6 cable, but iv just ordered 2x cat 6a cables for the main pc and server, just to check, everyone else will be fine streaming content, but I NEED my own pc and the server to hit at least 80mb/s or more.
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Cat6 cable isn't going to help you out here. Cat5e can handle over 1gb speeds over short runs and will handle 1gb just fine.

I'm assuming this is going to be for some kind of editing suite that you need to transfer so much data?
 
Todge said:
Cat6 cable isn't going to help you out here. Cat5e can handle over 1gb speeds over short runs and will handle 1gb just fine.

I'm assuming this is going to be for some kind of editing suite that you need to transfer so much data?
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I have no idea why... as it doesn't make any sense to me... but I have seen improvements in speeds between cat5e and cat6 over a 25m cable length.

With cheapy netgear switches that is.

I was actually struggling to get 30MB/s over cat 5e but as soon as I swapped it out with a cat6 cable I got up to 60-70MB/s on my home network.

Maybe the 5e cable was dodgy... because the subtle differences in manufacturing between the two types of cable really doesn't explain such a big difference in speed unless the tollerances are a lot tighter than I'd expect...
 
crinkleshoes said:
I have no idea why... as it doesn't make any sense to me... but I have seen improvements in speeds between cat5e and cat6 over a 25m cable length.

With cheapy netgear switches that is.

I was actually struggling to get 30MB/s over cat 5e but as soon as I swapped it out with a cat6 cable I got up to 60-70MB/s on my home network.

Maybe the 5e cable was dodgy... because the subtle differences in manufacturing between the two types of cable really doesn't explain such a big difference in speed unless the tollerances are a lot tighter than I'd expect...
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The difference in the cables is just the insulation. The wire used is usually identical so I'm wondering if the route your cable is taking is part of the problem?
 
Ahhh... could be, passes 3x power splitters (one powering the server, one powering PC and one powering AV gear)... so quite a bit of powery bits... didn't think the EMF would have been strong enough, but guess that must be it!
 
crinkleshoes said:
Ahhh... could be, passes 3x power splitters (one powering the server, one powering PC and one powering AV gear)... so quite a bit of powery bits... didn't think the EMF would have been strong enough, but guess that must be it!
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Combat squirrel said:
Yeah iv got 3 FAT grey main power cables near (1ft away) from the network cable, I wonder if thats close enough ?
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IIRC its far less of an issue for the power cord for the server than it is the main 2.5mm or 4mm T&E that powers your wall sockets. If your data cables are running parallel to the main house wiring under the floorboards then that might be having an effect.
 
Combat squirrel, have you got any Anti-virus programs running on your computers?

I have found in the past those applications can hinder Gigabit performance.
 
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