How can I increase network speeds?

[rcarteraz]

I'm trying to increase my network transfer speeds from my laptop, if possible. My laptop only has a 10/100 Ethernet port with no expansion card or usb 3.0. Now, I've found USB 2.0 to gigabit network adapters like this and I do understand that USB 2.0 is technically only able to reach a max of 480mb/s (which of course isn't gigbit) but would this help increase my transfer speeds at all? Thanks for the help

[Samppa221]

Well 480mbps looks faster than 100mbps to me so it should be better.

[Trikein]

My guess is you would get a faster connection rate, but throughput would be similar if not less. Some of it comes down to TCP/UDP negiotation which has more to do with drivers and software then hardware. I personally don't think it's worth the money, but don't have any experience to give you any clear data.

 

Also, what would you be connecting it to? Does that have a Gigabit port? 

 

Last, to confirm, you are looking to increase LAN to LAN throughput right? Not internet speed?

[rcarteraz]

4 minutes ago, Samppa221 said:

Well 480mbps looks faster than 100mbps to me so it should be better.

There's a lot more to it than that from what I've read. Thanks, though.

2 minutes ago, Trikein said:

My guess is you would get a faster connection rate, but throughput would be similar if not less. Some of it comes down to TCP/UDP negiotation which has more to do with drivers and software then hardware. I personally don't think it's worth the money, but don't have any experience to give you any clear data.

 

Also, what would you be connecting it to? Does that have a Gigabit port? 

 

Last, to confirm, you are looking to increase LAN to LAN throughput right? Not internet speed?

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just deal with the 11Mb/s until I can upgrade. Yes, this is just for LAN to LAN file transfer speeds. My other PC which has a gigabit nic is connected via a gigabit router in the other room.

[Trikein]

3 minutes ago, rcarteraz said:

There's a lot more to it than that from what I've read. Thanks, though.

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just deal with the 11Mb/s until I can upgrade. Yes, this is just for LAN to LAN file transfer speeds. My other PC which has a gigabit nic is connected via a gigabit router in the other room.

Why are you only getting 11Mbps on a 100Mbps NIC? What is your connection rate? How long is the ethernet? Do you get any packet loss or latency between PC and router or between PC and PC?

 

::edit:: Did you mean 11MB/s?

[rcarteraz]

1 minute ago, Trikein said:

Why are you only getting 11Mbps on a 100Mbps NIC? What is your connection rate? How long is the ethernet? Do you get any packet loss or latency between PC and router or between PC and PC?

 

::edit:: Did you mean 11MB/s?

11MB/s

[Razor512]

Keep in mind that USB 2.0 has a lot of overhead, the real world throughput is around 260Mbps (around 33MB/s).

[rcarteraz]

2 minutes ago, Razor512 said:

Keep in mind that USB 2.0 has a lot of overhead, the real world throughput is around 260Mbps (around 33MB/s).

That make sense but still 3 times what I'm currently getting. Makes me wonder if it's worth it.

[Razor512]

If you need to copy lots of data to a NAS, then it sure beats a 100mbit connection.

 

They seem to cost around $15 each for the USB 3 ones. They are useful to have because many newer ultra thin laptops lack Ethernet ports, and you never know when you may end up having to work on one where you have to dump a bunch of data to a NAS.