What is the 'ballmark' speed for Gigabit Ethernet over short distance?

hughythomas

hughythomas

hughythomas

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As per title really - I am getting 40MB/s sending files across a small home network using an ASUS RT-N56U as a router/gigabit switch.

I have to do a LOT of backups for my job (I work from home), is this an acceptable speed generally?

Many thanks in advance!
 
Not really no...

Do you know if getting dedicated Gigabit ethernet PCI/PCI-Xpress cards make a difference to speeds?

I'm just using an ASUS P8P67 onboard controller...
 
I doubt you'd see much benefit from a dedicated card (unless the onboard controller is really bad).

The speed achieved will be heavily influenced by the drives at both ends. Try testing the throughput using something like Iperf/Jperf to see what the network connection is capable of.
 
Its the D: drive from my computer (Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA 7200RPM) -> ASUS RT-N56U -> QNAP Turbo TS-110 (with a Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB SATA 7200RPM) via Cat 5E Gigabit.

I was hoping getting a NAS would speed up my data backup but iirc I was getting better speeds with a Icy Box USB 2.0 enclosure (direct from my computer's D: drive over USB to the Icy Box with another Samsung F3 1TB).

Although I could be wrong I cant really remember the speeds but this doesn't feel significantly faster.

Would love to know if I can somehow increase the speeds...
 
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40-60 MB/s is about average for gigabit ethernet transfer between two HDDs that aren't doing much else.

I've had 80+ MB/s before but that was with enabling jumbo frames, which screws up many websites so is not a long-term solution for PCs that access the internet.
 
Check that TCP offloading and RSS are enabled on both computers, and use Vista SP1 or better.

No need for jumbo frames. This is what I get with two Intel cards and windows 7.

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It's your Qnap holding you back, crappy consumer NAS's are limited by their chipsets/cpu's rather than the drives inside them. Your best bet is to get an eSATA or USB3 external drive.
 
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Zarf said:
It's your Qnap holding you back, crappy consumer NAS's are limited by their chipsets/cpu's rather than the drives inside them. Your best bet is to get an eSATA or USB3 external drive.
Click to expand...

Probably this, I often find the throughput of NAS are pretty shocking really.
 
Zarf said:
Check that TCP offloading and RSS are enabled on both computers, and use Vista SP1 or better.

No need for jumbo frames. This is what I get with two Intel cards and windows 7.
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Interesting. My desktop's ethernet adapter has all "offload" settings on but I doubt I could get 100+ MB/s because I'm using on-board ethernet adapters, a £15 gigabit switch and my server is running Fedora (and I have no idea how to optimise ethernet settings in Linux).
 
DragonQ said:
Interesting. My desktop's ethernet adapter has all "offload" settings on but I doubt I could get 100+ MB/s because I'm using on-board ethernet adapters, a £15 gigabit switch and my server is running Fedora (and I have no idea how to optimise ethernet settings in Linux).
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You're only normally going to see these 100 MByte/Sec+ speeds when very big files are involved (4.04 GB in the example above) and the drives involved aren't doing much else. If you tried copying 4.04GB of mixed files between the same machines you’d see a much lower overall speed.

The operating systems in use also make a difference (unless things have recently changed). You’d probably see better performance Windows to Windows, or Linux to Linux, than you would between Windows and Linux.

Installing better network cards can make a difference, but not a massive one in a single user environment.
 
hughythomas said:
Would love to know if I can somehow increase the speeds...
Click to expand...

To maximise the speed first you need to make sure all your components can handle the speeds you are looking to achieve. For GBe you are looking at 125MB/s theoretical max.

40MB/s does seem a bit slow but as others have mentioned, consumer grade NAS and routers/switches can hold transfer speeds back. Your router seems to be getting good reviews so you are probably ok there but your NAS according to SmallNetBuilder in their review here seems to be limited to around 40MB/s read and just a bit faster write. The newer QNap 119P+ could possibly double your performance if you want to stick with a Nas solution according to SNB.

Other options are a removable drive (eSATA/USB3) as mentioned by others but you then have the hassle of remembering to backup and unplug and bring back. A small server possibly using the HP Microserver should also give much better speeds if nothing else is going on to slow them down. The microserver will also allow you to expand and setup redundancy to cover disk failure, regular backups so you can roll back changes to files if needed and various other tasks that may be of benefit.

RB
 
hughythomas said:
Its the D: drive from my computer (Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA 7200RPM) -> ASUS RT-N56U -> QNAP Turbo TS-110 (with a Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB SATA 7200RPM) via Cat 5E Gigabit.

I was hoping getting a NAS would speed up my data backup but iirc I was getting better speeds with a Icy Box USB 2.0 enclosure (direct from my computer's D: drive over USB to the Icy Box with another Samsung F3 1TB).

Although I could be wrong I cant really remember the speeds but this doesn't feel significantly faster.

Would love to know if I can somehow increase the speeds...
Click to expand...

I have had a Qnap for a few years 410 , when I had the 4 drives in single mode
as in 4 single independant drives the speed was pretty fast 40ish I think
When I switched to raid5 mode the speed is only about 25Mb/s read and about 10Mb/s write :(
 
bremen1874 said:
You're only normally going to see these 100 MByte/Sec+ speeds when very big files are involved (4.04 GB in the example above) and the drives involved aren't doing much else. If you tried copying 4.04GB of mixed files between the same machines you’d see a much lower overall speed.

The operating systems in use also make a difference (unless things have recently changed). You’d probably see better performance Windows to Windows, or Linux to Linux, than you would between Windows and Linux.

Installing better network cards can make a difference, but not a massive one in a single user environment.
Click to expand...
Yeah for large files (10+ GiB) when both my desktop and server aren't doing anything else, I rarely get above 50 MB/s.
 
Just to reiterate, it's your NAS that is the bottle neck.

Gigabit switch + Cat5 + Short distance + 7200rpm drive should net you easily 90Mb/s.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys!

Bit late for sending the NAS back to OcUK unfortunately as I bought it last week...can't really send back if it isn't quick enough can I ? LOL!

Have to wait and save for a better one I guess :(
 
Tbh unless you want enterprise grade or to build a dedicated server, you're about as good as you're going to be.
 
hughythomas said:
Thanks for all the replies guys!

Bit late for sending the NAS back to OcUK unfortunately as I bought it last week...can't really send back if it isn't quick enough can I ? LOL!

Have to wait and save for a better one I guess :(
Click to expand...
The DSR states that you have the right to change your mind within 7 working days of product delivery. ;)
 
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