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

[Harry McGregor]

Hi,

You can check your link speeds with "ethtool ethX"

Also check your ping time across during a file transfer, and the speed
of both hard drives (hdparm and bonnie++).

There are some tweaks you can do in the samba smb.conf to increase the
transfer rate too.


                                            Harry

On 10/29/10 2:49 AM, Jim March wrote:
> 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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