Slow file transfer on my LAN

[odoepner]

Hi,

File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.

I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.

The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html 

The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).

The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.

Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?

thanks
Oliver

[Ian Campbell-9]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 07:33:54AM -0800, odoepner wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.
>
> I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
> and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.
>
> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html 
>
> The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the
> Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).
>
> The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.
>
> Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?

Yes, try testing with iperf instead of either of those. You probably
won't get much faster than a couple MB/s on 802.11g since
realistically you won't get 54mbit/s, so focus on the wired
connection.


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[Gregg King]

I'd be interested in hearing if you have the same speed problem using
another OS.  I've noticed slow speeds using some of the machines on my
home network running Linux.  Windows-Windows is fine but Linux-Windows
and Linux-Linux is much slower (about 20% of the Windows-Windows
speed).  When using two different machines however I get full speed
regardless of the OS.

Maybe it's the driver for the network card you have?

- Gregg



On 02/01/09 12:09 PM, Ian Campbell wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 07:33:54AM -0800, odoepner wrote:
>    
>> Hi,
>>
>> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.
>>
>> I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
>> and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.
>>
>> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
>> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html
>>
>> The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the
>> Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).
>>
>> The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.
>>
>> Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?
>>      
>
> Yes, try testing with iperf instead of either of those. You probably
> won't get much faster than a couple MB/s on 802.11g since
> realistically you won't get 54mbit/s, so focus on the wired
> connection.
>    
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> nSLUG mailing list
> nSLUG@...
> http://nslug.ns.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nslug
>    

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[J. Paul Bissonnette]

Are some of the machines using IPv6 and others using IPv4?


Smokedart wrote:

I'd be interested in hearing if you have the same speed problem using 
another OS.  I've noticed slow speeds using some of the machines on my 
home network running Linux.  Windows-Windows is fine but Linux-Windows 
and Linux-Linux is much slower (about 20% of the Windows-Windows 
speed).  When using two different machines however I get full speed 
regardless of the OS.

Maybe it's the driver for the network card you have?

- Gregg



On 02/01/09 12:09 PM, Ian Campbell wrote:
  

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 07:33:54AM -0800, odoepner wrote:
   
    

Hi,

File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.

I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.

The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html

The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the
Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).

The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.

Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?
     
      

Yes, try testing with iperf instead of either of those. You probably
won't get much faster than a couple MB/s on 802.11g since
realistically you won't get 54mbit/s, so focus on the wired
connection.
   
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[_budman_]

odoepner wrote:

> Hi,
>
> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.
>
> I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
> and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.
>
> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html 
>
> The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the
> Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).
>
> The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.
>
> Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?
>
>  

Have you tried other protocols?   FTP or NFS to see if its the network.

I think it might be Samba - SMB might be the bottleneck.



Rich
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[Herb -2]

I seem to remember reading that SMB is really chatty across the
network. A comparison between it and NFS is a good idea.

-Herb

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Rich <budman85@...> wrote:

>
>
> odoepner wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.
>>
>> I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
>> and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.
>>
>> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
>> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html
>>
>> The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the
>> Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).
>>
>> The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.
>>
>> Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?
>>
>>
>
> Have you tried other protocols?   FTP or NFS to see if its the network.
>
> I think it might be Samba - SMB might be the bottleneck.
>
>
>
> Rich
> _______________________________________________
> nSLUG mailing list
> nSLUG@...
> http://nslug.ns.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nslug
>

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[odoepner]

Hello everyone,

In January I sent an email regarding "Slow file transfer on my LAN" to the NSLUG mailing list and received some helpful answers (from Ian, Gregg, Herb, J.Paul and Rich). Unfortunately I got kind of distracted and did not pursue this any further. In particular, I did not reply to some questions and suggestions that were made.

I want to apologize for that and emphasize that I highly appreciate(d) all the responses from the list. The issue (slow LAN) still exists and I will try out the various ideas that were suggested when I finally get around to it ...

thanks
Oliver

odoepner wrote:

Hi,

File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.

I saw this on a wired client (with an Nvidia Nforce network controller)
and a wireless client (my laptop) using wireless/g.

The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html 

The devices were connected via a Linksys WRTG 54GL router (v1.1) running the Linux based firmware DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std (see dd-wrt.com).

The transer protocols tested were Samba and SCP.

Any ideas how I could narrow down the problem?

thanks
Oliver

[Hatem Nassrat]

Oliver,

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:38 PM, odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> odoepner wrote:
>> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.

2MB/s is == 16Mbps

since this is greater than 11Mbps and you did mention wireless so I
guess you are using atleast 802.11g. If you have multiple machines
connected via wireless the are space bandwidth is divided (freq
modulation) by the number of machines connected, i.e. if you have 3.3
machines connected via wireless that would be the max bandwidth you
would get on an 802.11g network.

[...]
>> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
>> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html

Sometimes the network wiring itself may contribute to the speed. I
recently found out that to use Gigabit one should use cat6e wiring.

Hope my assumptions are not too trivial or they were covered earlier.
I believe this topic was started before I joined as I have no
recollection of it.

--
Hatem Nassrat
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[Daniel Enman]

V
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

-----Original Message-----
From: Hatem Nassrat <hnassrat@...>
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:12:23
To: Nova Scotia Linux User Group<nslug@...>
Subject: Re: [nSLUG] Slow file transfer on my LAN

Oliver,

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:38 PM, odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> odoepner wrote:
>> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.

2MB/s is == 16Mbps

since this is greater than 11Mbps and you did mention wireless so I
guess you are using atleast 802.11g. If you have multiple machines
connected via wireless the are space bandwidth is divided (freq
modulation) by the number of machines connected, i.e. if you have 3.3
machines connected via wireless that would be the max bandwidth you
would get on an 802.11g network.

[...]
>> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
>> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html

Sometimes the network wiring itself may contribute to the speed. I
recently found out that to use Gigabit one should use cat6e wiring.

Hope my assumptions are not too trivial or they were covered earlier.
I believe this topic was started before I joined as I have no
recollection of it.

--
Hatem Nassrat
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[Ian Campbell-9]

On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 02:12:23PM -0400, Hatem Nassrat wrote:
>
> Sometimes the network wiring itself may contribute to the speed. I
> recently found out that to use Gigabit one should use cat6e wiring.

cat5e, although you can certainly use cat6 if you want.
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[George N. White III]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 3:12 PM, Hatem Nassrat <hnassrat@...> wrote:

> Oliver,
>
> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:38 PM, odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
>> odoepner wrote:
>>> File transfers in my home LAN never seem to be faster than 2MB/s.
>
> 2MB/s is == 16Mbps
>
> since this is greater than 11Mbps and you did mention wireless so I
> guess you are using atleast 802.11g. If you have multiple machines
> connected via wireless the are space bandwidth is divided (freq
> modulation) by the number of machines connected, i.e. if you have 3.3
> machines connected via wireless that would be the max bandwidth you
> would get on an 802.11g network.
>
> [...]
>>> The file server is an Excito Bubba/2 (has a Gigabit NIC):
>>> http://www.excito.com/bubba/technical-specifications.html
>
> Sometimes the network wiring itself may contribute to the speed. I
> recently found out that to use Gigabit one should use cat6e wiring.

Well, gigabit was designed to work on cat5(e):

"Able to achieve Gigabit speeds on commonly deployed CAT-5
cabling without costly cable replacement"
<http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/pro1000mt_server_adapter.htm>

Another document is more realistic"

"Testing Existing Cable
Existing Cat-5 cabling must meet
certain transmission characteristics
before it can be used for Gigabit
Ethernet. Network managers need
not be overly concerned, since it is
estimated that less than 10% of existing
Cat-5 installations will not meet the
requirements (Gigabit Ethernet
Alliance, 2000). These installations
would also not support 100BASE-TX
Fast Ethernet."

http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/resources/doc_library/white_papers/gigabit_ethernet/gigabit_ethernet.pdf

I'd day many network managers do need to consider cable
replacement:

Intel's Win drivers for their gigabit ethernet interfaces have a cable test
function that has been very useful at work where we have early
cat5e that was marginal even for 100-baseT.  I find the cable test
just hangs on the drops that just don't work for gigabit, but
reports "good" signal quality for the drops that work.  About
25% of our drops fail the test, and they seem to be either "test
fails completely" or test reports "good".

If we have to replace 25% of the drops we light as well redo them
all.

> Hope my assumptions are not too trivial or they were covered earlier.
> I believe this topic was started before I joined as I have no
> recollection of it.

--
George N. White III <aa056@...>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
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[Stephen Gregory-2]

George N. White III wrote:
>
> Well, gigabit was designed to work on cat5(e):
>
> "Able to achieve Gigabit speeds on commonly deployed CAT-5
> cabling without costly cable replacement"

gah! I wish I knew this three days ago. I just pulled 5 lines of
miserable cat6 instead of cat5e thinking that we needed it. Electrically
the cat6 is fantastic. Physically it is stiff and keeps trying to coil
back up like a spring. It is a bear to work with.

--
sg
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[Ian Campbell-9]

On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 06:52:58PM -0500, Stephen Gregory wrote:
>
> gah! I wish I knew this three days ago. I just pulled 5 lines of
> miserable cat6 instead of cat5e thinking that we needed it. Electrically
> the cat6 is fantastic. Physically it is stiff and keeps trying to coil
> back up like a spring. It is a bear to work with.

Hopefully you used a reputable supplier ;)

http://www.cccassoc.org/news/CCCA%20-Cable%20Test%20Results%20slides%20Final.pdf
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[Stephen Gregory-2]

Ian Campbell wrote:
>
> Hopefully you used a reputable supplier ;)
>
> http://www.cccassoc.org/news/CCCA%20-Cable%20Test%20Results%20slides%20Final.pdf

wow. The complete failure of the fire ratings is surprising. I had
thought UL and CSA did a better job controlling which products get to
carry their mark. Thanks for the link.

At work we spare little expense. The cat6 was from Belden. For home use
I was going to get some no name stuff but will now be buying something
expensive.

--
sg
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[Richard Bonner]

On Sun, 1 Nov 2009, Stephen Gregory wrote:

> Ian Campbell wrote:
>>
>> Hopefully you used a reputable supplier ;)
>>
>> http://www.cccassoc.org/news/CCCA%20-Cable%20Test%20Results%20slides%20Final.pdf
>
> wow. The complete failure of the fire ratings is surprising. I had
> thought UL and CSA did a better job controlling which products get to
> carry their mark.
(Snip)
> --
> sg

***   There are now too many companies bringing in crap or counterfeit
cables. Every year the RCMP and other government agencies show tables
of crap and counterfeit goods along with the damages caused by some of
them.

  Richard
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