How can I tell?

[_Grid21]

I have CAT6 cables and a Asus Z87-A mother that supports Gigabit networking. When I copy files to my file server it's about 52.7MB/s to the server. The server has a Realtek RTL8169SC NIC and supports Gigabit as well. But copying from the server is 42.6MB/s. Is this Gigabit speed? How can I tell if I am truly running at Gigabit speeds? The server is running Windows Server 2012 Standard. Granted servers optimize hardware better then Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. But seriously how can I tell? I am copying files from a internal hard drive to an external drive over my network. The external drive is connect via USB 3.0. Should I install the same network card on my desktop as the server has? Is a NIC better than onboard LAN? 

 

If someone can help me figure this out that would be awesome.

[The Official Czex]

The transfer of data is limited by the transferred (ie. Your HDD).

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

Check your link speed to see if you are getting the full gigabit bandwidth, your being limited by the write speed of the physical drives in your server so you can't really tell just by looking at it that way. 

[_Grid21]

Check your link speed to see if you are getting the full gigabit bandwidth, your being limited by the write speed of the physical drives in your server so you can't really tell just by looking at it that way. 

One hard drive is a WD Red, and the other is a Toshiba Canvio.

 

The transfer of data is limited by the transferred (ie. Your HDD).

Which is better NIC or onboard?

[JebKerman]

Which is better NIC or onboard?

your hard drive, the thing you are actually copying to (and/or from) is the bottleneck, nothing to do with your network.

[The Official Czex]

One hard drive is a WD Red, and the other is a Toshiba Canvio.

 

Which is better NIC or onboard?

 

It's not your connection, it's your drives. You can't saturate a Gb connection with HDD' s unless they're in some kind of extreme RAID solution. 

[thekeemo]

It's not your connection, it's your drives. You can't saturate a Gb connection with HDD' s unless they're in some kind of extreme RAID solution. 

8 way raid 0 anyone

[Enderman]

well first of all, since your drives can only do 50MBps the drives are the bottleneck

 

 

second, you can go in task manager and in the network tab it should have a column that says "link speed" and that will say 1000Mbps or 1Gbps

 

 

and third since your drives are getting 50MBps, you can multiply that by 8 which = 400Mbps so if you were not using gigabit, you would be using 100Mbps which would be a quarter of the speed you're getting

 

So yes, you are using gigabit at 400Mbps aka 50MBps

It could go up to 1000Mbps aka 125MBps if your hard drives were faster or if you had an SSD

[W-L]

One hard drive is a WD Red, and the other is a Toshiba Canvio.

Which is better NIC or onboard?

 

Gigabit gives a theoretical 125MB/s bandwidth so your not limited in anyway with just two drives in your server. Link speed is what will show your maximum throughput to the server.

[skywake]

One hard drive is a WD Red, and the other is a Toshiba Canvio

You're not going to get full Gigabit speeds copying files from a 2.5" HDD in a USB enclosure.

[_Grid21]

So my next question is, which is better. Onboard LAN, or NIC? I really like the NIC my server has and would love to have it in my main machine.

[Wombo]

So my next question is, which is better. Onboard LAN, or NIC? I really like the NIC my server has and would love to have it in my main machine.

If you don't know what features the NICs come with and don't have the knowledge to use them, they are the exact same. Granted they have the same rated speeds.

[_Grid21]

If you don't know what features the NICs come with and don't have the knowledge to use them, they are the exact same. Granted they have the same rated speeds.

Thanks. I'll play with this theory for fun later.

[braneopbru]

So my next question is, which is better. Onboard LAN, or NIC? I really like the NIC my server has and would love to have it in my main machine.

 

Interface is for the most part meaningless in terms of judging performance. Asking whether an on board LAN solution is better or worse than an add in NIC is basically the same as asking "Which is a better car; a sedan or coupe?" It's a meaningless question with no answer.

 

The controller chip is what makes NIC or on board LAN better or worse. Most motherboards are using Realtek controllers. They are shit. Pretty much any NIC under $20-$30 uses Realtek controllers, most of the time, the exact same controller that you'll find directly soldered to motherboards. They are also shit.

 

You want a good NIC? Get one with an Intel controller and pay at least $40 for it; it'll be pretty darn good and much better than the Realtek junk you probably have right now.

 

 

As far as your original question: You gotta learn to troubleshoot.

 

If you're trying to figure out if your LAN is slowing down the transfers, take the LAN out of the equasion. Plug the USB drive straight into your server and try doing a file copy locally. Take a look at the kind of speeds you're getting. If local transfers over USB are at the same speeds that you were getting over the LAN, you know right away that your LAN isn't what's slowing you down, it's your drives. If you see transfers go much faster over USB, you know right away that your LAN is holding back your traffic.

 

The easiest way to check your LAN for performance is downloading and running iperf.  

[_Grid21]

Interface is for the most part meaningless in terms of judging performance. Asking whether an on board LAN solution is better or worse than an add in NIC is basically the same as asking "Which is a better car; a sedan or coupe?" It's a meaningless question with no answer.

 

The controller chip is what makes NIC or on board LAN better or worse. Most motherboards are using Realtek controllers. They are shit. Pretty much any NIC under $20-$30 uses Realtek controllers, most of the time, the exact same controller that you'll find directly soldered to motherboards. They are also shit.

 

You want a good NIC? Get one with an Intel controller and pay at least $40 for it; it'll be pretty darn good and much better than the Realtek junk you probably have right now.

 

 

As far as your original question: You gotta learn to troubleshoot.

 

If you're trying to figure out if your LAN is slowing down the transfers, take the LAN out of the equasion. Plug the USB drive straight into your server and try doing a file copy locally. Take a look at the kind of speeds you're getting. If local transfers over USB are at the same speeds that you were getting over the LAN, you know right away that your LAN isn't what's slowing you down, it's your drives. If you see transfers go much faster over USB, you know right away that your LAN is holding back your traffic.

 

The easiest way to check your LAN for performance is downloading and running iperf.

I don't know why you call Realtek junk. I've had money Realtek stuff and Iove their products and chips. I've had great success with their technologies.

As for the LAN speed I'll have to give that a shot.

[braneopbru]

I call Realtek junk because, especially when it comes to networking, it IS junk. There's a reason that the absolute cheapest motherboards and the absolute cheapest NICs all have Realtek controllers and that reason isn't because of their high quality and outstanding performance. It's because they are the cheapest.

 

Silicon is expensive, software running on somebody else's silicon is cheap. Realtek ethernet controllers, for the most part, will do the absolute bare minimum in hardware and will offload as much as possible to the host computer. You will probably have a hard time getting a Realtek controller to actually saturate a gigabit connection reliably.

 

In contrast, an ethernet controller from Intel will (depending on the specific chip) perform much more in the hardware, lowering the host's CPU overhead.

 

In addition to usually having many more features than a Realtek controller would, It'll easily saturate a gigabit connection, while using less of your CPU's processing power to get those speeds.

 

Want a good NIC? Get one with an Intel controller. Period.

[_Grid21]

I call Realtek junk because, especially when it comes to networking, it IS junk. There's a reason that the absolute cheapest motherboards and the absolute cheapest NICs all have Realtek controllers and that reason isn't because of their high quality and outstanding performance. It's because they are the cheapest.

 

Silicon is expensive, software running on somebody else's silicon is cheap. Realtek ethernet controllers, for the most part, will do the absolute bare minimum in hardware and will offload as much as possible to the host computer. You will probably have a hard time getting a Realtek controller to actually saturate a gigabit connection reliably.

 

In contrast, an ethernet controller from Intel will (depending on the specific chip) perform much more in the hardware, lowering the host's CPU overhead.

 

In addition to usually having many more features than a Realtek controller would, It'll easily saturate a gigabit connection, while using less of your CPU's processing power to get those speeds.

 

Want a good NIC? Get one with an Intel controller. Period.

My dad wanted to know, how does 3 Comm compare to Intel? He said 3Comm has been a good company all these years.

[braneopbru]

3Com no longer exists and has not existed since 2010. It was bought by and absorbed into Hewlett-Packard, which itself no longer exists in the same way that it did when it purchased 3Com.

 

When it still existed 3Com made excellent hardware. I remember in the late 90's, if you wanted a NIC, you just bought a 3Com card, end of story.

 

I remember back in '98 installing a 3Com 5 port ethernet switch (not hub, switches were still insanely expensive) that had a built in 56k modem and router. It was an office that needed to provide internet access to four employees and instead of having to pay for four extra phone lines and four internet plans, we installed 3Com 10Mb cards in each computer and setup this weird lovechild of a device. Any time somebody would try to go on the internet, this thing would dial-up an connect; after 5 minutes of no internet activity, it would hang up the line and wait.

 

Yeah, 3Com made some cool shit.

[_Grid21]

3Com no longer exists and has not existed since 2010. It was bought by and absorbed into Hewlett-Packard, which itself no longer exists in the same way that it did when it purchased 3Com.

 

When it still existed 3Com made excellent hardware. I remember in the late 90's, if you wanted a NIC, you just bought a 3Com card, end of story.

 

I remember back in '98 installing a 3Com 5 port ethernet switch (not hub, switches were still insanely expensive) that had a built in 56k modem and router. It was an office that needed to provide internet access to four employees and instead of having to pay for four extra phone lines and four internet plans, we installed 3Com 10Mb cards in each computer and setup this weird lovechild of a device. Any time somebody would try to go on the internet, this thing would dial-up an connect; after 5 minutes of no internet activity, it would hang up the line and wait.

 

Yeah, 3Com made some cool shit.

That's cool! Sad to hear their not around anymore. What would you suggest for a Intel PCIe NIC for a good price?