LAN File transfer going painfully slow

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 17:50

Ive got a LAN set up here at home. There are two computers with 10/100mbps NIC's connected to a 10/100mbps hub, with a third computer acting as the Internet gateway, with either a 10/100mbps or a 10mbps nic(Not sure which). The server is cooencted to the internet via a usb DSL modem. So far everything works fine. The problem comes when I try and copy stuff from the server(The internet gateway machine) to my main machine. Im currently trying to copy about 14Gb of stuff across, and its only done half of it in about 3hours

Does anyone have any suggestions of what the problem might be? Even if the server's NIC is only 10Mbps, surely it shouldnt go this slow? Another questions is; Say the server's NIC is 10Mbps, would the rest of the network be pulled down to 10Mbps, or would only the connection with the server run at that speed?

Gavstar · 26 Apr 2006 at 18:55

doesn't sound too far off for a 10Mbps lan transfer, I work it out to be roughly 5-6 Mbps. I don't know what realworld throughput of 10Mbps ethernet is, but I'd gues it wouldn't be a lot higher than that.

And for other question, if the hub is infact a switch then no, the slower NIC won't drag the others down if transferring between themselves.

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 19:25

At my estimation its going to take 5 hours to complete what is just shy of 15Gb. So that 3Gb per hour, which = 3000mb/60/60=0.833 Thats less than 1Mb per second. I know 10Mbps isnt great, but this is just stupid.

Gavstar · 26 Apr 2006 at 19:46

messiah khan said:
At my estimation its going to take 5 hours to complete what is just shy of 15Gb. So that 3Gb per hour, which = 3000mb/60/60=0.833 Thats less than 1Mb per second. I know 10Mbps isnt great, but this is just stupid.

No, its less than 1MB per second.
Its going at about 7Mbps based on those figures, not bad I'd say.

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 20:19

Ah, I get you. Thanks. Time for me to upgrade my network I recon.

Gavstar · 26 Apr 2006 at 20:26

Yeh, I still have to stop and think about the old bits/bytes thing.

100Mbps network cards are cheap as chips nowadays though, so at least its a cheap and simple fix!

Burbleflop · 26 Apr 2006 at 20:35

messiah khan said:
Ah, I get you. Thanks. Time for me to upgrade my network I recon.

Yep. Ditch the hub whilst you're at it, full-duplex can make a big difference.