[Tfug] A really basic, possibly annoying network question...

[Jim March]

Folks,

I'm finally in possession of a real file server, to a certain level of
"real" :).  OK, it's relatively crap, but...it's something.  It's an old P4
desktop with 2gigs RAM, 320gig HD, pretty basic, running Lucid.

I want to use it as someplace to do backups to from my laptop.

Now, my WiFi router is crap, it's a basic G device owned by my landlady.  So
rather than run any traffic through that, I just took a Cat5 Ethernet
crossover cable and went straight from laptop (running Maverick) to the
"server".  Set the Ethernet ports up for static IPs, both 192.168.168."x",
mask of 255.255.255.0.  Laptop can still get to the internet through WiFi,
"server" can't but I don't care about that for now.

I set up a Samba share on the server, accessed it from the lappy, am copying
now.

Therein lies the problem: transfer speeds are crap.  Right now under "file
operations" it says 1.5MB/s, taking 4+ hours to transfer 27gigs.  Well that
sucks hard.  When the copying started it briefly hit 6.5MB/s but degraded
rapidly from there.

Ethernet port in the lappy is gigabit class per lspci:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet
Controller

In the server it's 10/100, a Realtek RTL8139c.

Now...<scratches head>...is it possible the server IO (or lappy for that
matter?) is stuck at 10mb/s?  Doesn't seem likely.  Throwing a gigabit-class
card in the server is a definite option, but...would it help?  Is something
else maybe hosing me?  Because I don't think I'm getting anywhere near what
a 100MB/s card should do, right?

What am I missing here?  CPU and memory load on both ends seems low.  Disk
load is close to non-existent 'cept for the occasional spike at the
"server".  Under "System Monitor">"Resources">"Network History" the network
IO traffic is bouncing up and down between about 2.2MB/s on the high end to
.25 or so on the low end, average somewhere around 800-1k or so.

Now, my WiFi router is crap, it's a basic G device owned by my landlady.  So
rather than run any traffic through that, I just took a Cat5 Ethernet
crossover cable and went straight from laptop (running Maverick) to the
"server".  Set the Ethernet ports up for static IPs, both 192.168.168."x",
mask of 255.255.255.0.  Laptop can still get to the internet through WiFi,
"server" can't but I don't care about that for now.

Remember, there's no "router" at all here.  Zip.  Junk cable maybe?  It's
about 30ft long...says...lesse here...Cat5e like I thought.  Ain't Cat6 but
it shouldn't suck like this, right?

WTF?

Jim
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