File transfers over home network are very slow.

Nobi125

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When I'm transferring transferring files (say a large video) from one PC to another on my home network, I'm stuck with 11MB/s.

Both PCs are running Windows 7. Router is a Linksys WRT54G v2 running a recent version of DD-WRT. Also, the second PC is behind a D-Link DIR-604 router that is acting as a switch. 70 feet of CAT6 cable between the Linksys and D-Link Routers.

Would moving to a gigabit router and switch solve this problem?

Any ideas?
 
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11MB/s or 11Mb/s?

11MB/s is the maximum you'll get out of a 100mbit network.
 
yup, 11MB/s is max of 100Mbps NIC

upgrade to gigabit and you'll get 125MB/s assuming your hard drives/arrays can read/write that fast.
 
yup, 11MB/s is max of 100Mbps NIC

upgrade to gigabit and you'll get 125MB/s assuming your hard drives/arrays can read/write that fast.


wrong....due to protocol overhead and seeing as how NOTHING ever works at its peak "theoretical" limits, you'll probably float near 100MB/s maybe lower, still depends on the disk read/write performance.
 
wrong....due to protocol overhead and seeing as how NOTHING ever works at its peak "theoretical" limits, you'll probably float near 100MB/s maybe lower, still depends on the disk read/write performance.

just like "theoretical" limit of 100Mb/s is 12.5MBps

125MBps is just a quick rough estimate, you'll never get that high of course - don't be a prick
 
I'll take 100MB/s. I think realistically I'll be getting 60-70MB/s with my HDs.
 
I just swapped the old dlink router out for a gigabit switch and my transfer speeds have dropped. I expected them to at least remain the same until I got a gigabit router.

Now I'm getting rates between 400Kb/s-1Mb/s....

I ran a speed test on the PC that's behind the switch and everything looked normal.
 
Why not just bypass the 100Mb switch in the WRT54G and plug both PC's into the Gigabit switch. Gigabit transfers without needed another switch.
 
Why not just bypass the 100Mb switch in the WRT54G and plug both PC's into the Gigabit switch. Gigabit transfers without needed another switch.

I thought about doing that, but I want the secondary PC to have internet and all that good stuff. I'd have to enable internet sharing on the main PC.
 
No you wouldn't. Just run a crossover trunk from the Gigabit switch to the WRT54G.
 
No you wouldn't. Just run a crossover trunk from the Gigabit switch to the WRT54G.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I haven't done that due to the layout of all the components in question.

The WRT54G and the Main PC are in one room and the switch and secondary PC are about 50 feet away.

I'm really disappointed that the new gigabit switch is performing far worse as a switch than a crappy old 10/100 router. :confused:
 
I think you've either got a bad switch (duds happen occasionally for everything) or you have a separate problem elsewhere. I've dealt with 3 of the older (non-green) model of these TRENDnet switches - 2 for myself and 1 for my parents - and all work great. These don't support jumbo frames, and I've gotten over 400Mb between a single WD Black in my PC and a single WD Green in my FreeNAS.

Do you have other stuff plugged into the new switch with the second PC? (I assume you do, but it's not specifically mentioned.) If not, then you shouldn't need the switch in there with that PC. If you do have other stuff there, then you could alleviate the bottleneck with a second cable run between the two locations (run the WRT54G's internet all the way down to the gigabit switch, then run a second cable back to the main PC from the gigabit switch) or another gigabit switch (one at each end of the cable between the two rooms, with the PCs plugged into those rather than the router's switch).
 
I think you've either got a bad switch (duds happen occasionally for everything) or you have a separate problem elsewhere. I've dealt with 3 of the older (non-green) model of these TRENDnet switches - 2 for myself and 1 for my parents - and all work great. These don't support jumbo frames, and I've gotten over 400Mb between a single WD Black in my PC and a single WD Green in my FreeNAS.

Do you have other stuff plugged into the new switch with the second PC? (I assume you do, but it's not specifically mentioned.) If not, then you shouldn't need the switch in there with that PC. If you do have other stuff there, then you could alleviate the bottleneck with a second cable run between the two locations (run the WRT54G's internet all the way down to the gigabit switch, then run a second cable back to the main PC from the gigabit switch) or another gigabit switch (one at each end of the cable between the two rooms, with the PCs plugged into those rather than the router's switch).

The second PC was sharing the switch with an Xbox 360 that was not turned on.

I'm thinking that I must have gotten a bad switch because just swapping the switch out for the old router, without doing anything else, fixed the problem.
 
The second PC was sharing the switch with an Xbox 360 that was not turned on.

I'm thinking that I must have gotten a bad switch because just swapping the switch out for the old router, without doing anything else, fixed the problem.

if you've isolated it to the switch, then yes that would be your issue. replace it and see if the issue persists
 
if you've isolated it to the switch, then yes that would be your issue. replace it and see if the issue persists

Yeah, this will be my first online purchase RMA. Let's see how easy it is to return stuff to newegg.
 
I'm confused. If both PC' s aren't connected to the switch, you're not going to get gigabit speeds.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
I'm confused. If both PC' s aren't connected to the switch, you're not going to get gigabit speeds.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

the entire post made no sense, maybe the OP can rephrase his issue in one legible post and describe his setup and issues in detail we could fully understand it

honestly, I can't figure out what's going on here because your story gets more diluted with each post
 
Borrowed a gigabit router from a friend and the new gigabit switch works fine now. 100+Mb/s transfer rates. I guess I will just buy a new router as I intended to. Thank you for your help gentlemen.

Here's a breakdown:

Room 1:
Main PC
Router

|
|

75 feet of Cat 6 (1 cable)

|
|

Room 2:
HTPC
Xbox360
Switch
 
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lol nice diagram, ok that makes sense now. thanks bro, and I'm glad you solved it by isolating the switch as the issue. I'd RMA it if you can, might be tough, might have to go through the manufacturer for this fyi
 
lol nice diagram, ok that makes sense now. thanks bro, and I'm glad you solved it by isolating the switch as the issue. I'd RMA it if you can, might be tough, might have to go through the manufacturer for this fyi

After swapping out the old linksys router for a new gigabit router, the switch is working perfectly. So I guess I'm just gonna keep the switch.
 
It's because you weren't utilizing the switch for the 2 PC's you were transferring files between. The transfers were going through the router, not the switch. ;)
 
You said your pc's are running Windows 7. I do transfers between my W7 pc's in a home group and for some reason large transfers (between 6-10gb) seem to be damn near instantaneous. And this is non-gigabit router.
 
You said your pc's are running Windows 7. I do transfers between my W7 pc's in a home group and for some reason large transfers (between 6-10gb) seem to be damn near instantaneous. And this is non-gigabit router.

You know that's impossible, right?
 
You don't need a GigE Router, just get a GigE Switch and place it next to the router you already have.
So plug the router's Port1 into GigE Switches Port1 and then main PC into Port 2, Port 3 will go to the other rooms Switch on Port1 and then the other devices to the remaining Ports. GigE Routers are pretty pricey.

We have our setup similar to yours, D-link Wireless router downstairs hooked to a Netgear GigE Switch, PC and Laser printer hooked to the Netgear, then a cable from the Netgear goes upstairs, about a 100 foot run, and hooks into a Dlink GigE Switch. My main PC, HTPC, and another 10/100 switch are hooked to the Dlink.
The unbranded 10/100 switch has my Xbox 360 and a cable going into another room to an Actiontec router where we are using it as a wireless access point and switch for 2 XP PC's in that room.
 
No you wouldn't. Just run a crossover trunk from the Gigabit switch to the WRT54G.

Auto-crossover is built into the GigE spec so there wouldn't be a need for a crossover cable unless the old linksys router/new GigE switch specifically have an issue auto-negotiating together.
 
Auto-crossover is built into the GigE spec so there wouldn't be a need for a crossover cable unless the old linksys router/new GigE switch specifically have an issue auto-negotiating together.

You only need one device to have Auto MDI-X? That's cool, I didn't know that. I was under the assumtion that for auto MDI-X to work, both devices had to be GigE devices.
 
You know that's impossible, right?

Yes of course it is. But for some reason transferring files to another pc in your home group in W7 is not the same as a normal LAN transfer. After I got W7 loaded on all my PC's some weeks ago, I transferred a 6Gb file after setting up Home Group. I was willing to wait about the 13 or so min it usually takes over LAN. By the time it took me to walk to the pc in other room and sat down (where the files were being transferred to), it was completely finished..in about 3 minutes.

I've done many many transfers over LAN and never got that type of speed...with the same equipment. It got my attention so I started moving large files back and forth just see if this wasn't a fluke..and it wasn't. I tried the same thing on a notebook running XP and the transfer took about 18 minutes for a 7Gb file...yes was using wired and not wireless.

Don't know what the deal is... don't really care either just as long as I keep getting speeds like that.
 
Yes of course it is. But for some reason transferring files to another pc in your home group in W7 is not the same as a normal LAN transfer. After I got W7 loaded on all my PC's some weeks ago, I transferred a 6Gb file after setting up Home Group. I was willing to wait about the 13 or so min it usually takes over LAN. By the time it took me to walk to the pc in other room and sat down (where the files were being transferred to), it was completely finished..in about 3 minutes.

I've done many many transfers over LAN and never got that type of speed...with the same equipment. It got my attention so I started moving large files back and forth just see if this wasn't a fluke..and it wasn't. I tried the same thing on a notebook running XP and the transfer took about 18 minutes for a 7Gb file...yes was using wired and not wireless.

Don't know what the deal is... don't really care either just as long as I keep getting speeds like that.


I want to learn your voodoo
 
W7 might not be using TCP/IP to transfer the files, but still, to get that speed would be a stretch at the very least even with compression. Unless he's running dual lines at 2Gb or fiber. Without knowing the exact setup and equipment I would have a hard time explaining how it's happening.

It appears the original poster got their setup working?


Edit: Never mind, after getting curious and looking at it, 6gb in 3 minutes is very attainable. I can reach speeds of 66MB/sec between a vista and w7 machine (when Vista is behaving) and a 3 gig transfer took just over a minute. Problem is Vista will flake out after a while and I can only get 11MB/sec untill it's rebooted.
 
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Theoretical limit of 100Mbps is 12MBps. That's 720MB/minute.
That's the limit...

Three minutes, the max you could do is 2.16GB. That's nowhere near the 6GB that's being claimed.
 
You don't need a GigE Router, just get a GigE Switch and place it next to the router you already have.
So plug the router's Port1 into GigE Switches Port1 and then main PC into Port 2, Port 3 will go to the other rooms Switch on Port1 and then the other devices to the remaining Ports. GigE Routers are pretty pricey.

We have our setup similar to yours, D-link Wireless router downstairs hooked to a Netgear GigE Switch, PC and Laser printer hooked to the Netgear, then a cable from the Netgear goes upstairs, about a 100 foot run, and hooks into a Dlink GigE Switch. My main PC, HTPC, and another 10/100 switch are hooked to the Dlink.
The unbranded 10/100 switch has my Xbox 360 and a cable going into another room to an Actiontec router where we are using it as a wireless access point and switch for 2 XP PC's in that room.

I considered this, but I was going to be upgrading to Wireless N in the near future anyways. Might as well get a new N router with a gig switch.
 
Theoretical limit of 100Mbps is 12MBps. That's 720MB/minute.
That's the limit...

Three minutes, the max you could do is 2.16GB. That's nowhere near the 6GB that's being claimed.

Edit: Just realized that he said it was a non-gigabit router, my bad.
Sorry, I was talking 1000Mbps not 100. When I first thought about it I was thinking 6 gigabytes always took longer, but in reality on properly functioning gigabit connections, that amount of data goes pretty fast. The problem I see with my machines and Vista is that it seems to throttle the gigabit NIC's back to 100Mbit speeds after the machine has been on for a while. Windows 7 doesn't act the same way and maintains the gigabit speeds. I'd like to know what causes Vista to do that, but have never run across a solution.

This is on X58 motherboards with Realtek NICS, FYI.




Is this thread derailed yet? :p
 
Edit: Just realized that he said it was a non-gigabit router, my bad.
Sorry, I was talking 1000Mbps not 100. When I first thought about it I was thinking 6 gigabytes always took longer, but in reality on properly functioning gigabit connections, that amount of data goes pretty fast. The problem I see with my machines and Vista is that it seems to throttle the gigabit NIC's back to 100Mbit speeds after the machine has been on for a while. Windows 7 doesn't act the same way and maintains the gigabit speeds. I'd like to know what causes Vista to do that, but have never run across a solution.

This is on X58 motherboards with Realtek NICS, FYI.




Is this thread derailed yet? :p
On Gig, it should actually only take 48 seconds... If he was actually on Gig and a 6GB file took 3 minutes, it's actually running slower than it should (Could be attributed to extra network traffic or slow I/O operations, etc, etc).

But yea, his 6GB in 3 minutes claim is impossible.
Perhaps more time elapsed than what he had thought. Or he transferred a different file. Or was mistaken on the size of the file.

As for your problem, is jumbo frames enabled on your NIC? Set to auto?
 
And also FWIW... I've never been a fan of Vista's networking. I can't put my finger on why, either... It just seems to think it's smarter than its own good.

Windows 7 actually IS smart enough, whereas Vista... It's like it's a smart OS running on old OS technology when it came to the networking.

I seriously don't know how to describe it, but Vista's Networking kindof sucks.
 
On Gig, it should actually only take 48 seconds... If he was actually on Gig and a 6GB file took 3 minutes, it's actually running slower than it should (Could be attributed to extra network traffic or slow I/O operations, etc, etc).

But yea, his 6GB in 3 minutes claim is impossible.
Perhaps more time elapsed than what he had thought. Or he transferred a different file. Or was mistaken on the size of the file.

As for your problem, is jumbo frames enabled on your NIC? Set to auto?

Nah.. not mistaken at all. Not a different file nor was I stuck in a time loop. The initial file was a BRRip movie file of 5.87Gb. I dragged and dropped the file into the folder on the networked PC (like I always do) and that was it. I got up, walked down stairs to another bedroom where the transfer was...fumbled around in a drawer for a sec, looked up to check the progress of the transfer..and it was complete. About 3 min..no longer than 4. And NO it wasn't streaming.

After said transfer I started moving large files back and forth because I didn't believe the speed. Moved a few large files with great speed. Shrugged it off as Win7 home group kicking ass and that was that. No illusions, no noobness.
 
The machine downstairs shouldn't show any type of file transfer dialog window, it will just show the file on the drive with the files' total size at once. It doesn't count up as it copies.
It currently took me 3 minutes to transfer a 5GB movie from my main rig to my HTPC.
 
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