Wired network transfer speed below 2GB/sec

mes71168

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Mar 31, 2009
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I have a small home wired network setup. Two desktop computers connected to a desktop server - Windows 7 & Server 2008.
My hub is a DLink DIR-655 Extreme Gigabit router and all computers are running with gigabit network cards. Wire is CAT5.
Hard drives in all computers are at least 7200rpm - some are 10000 rpm, hybrid or solid state and all are SATA3 at least.
When I reboot everything, I get file transfer speeds to and from the server at around 60-80 MB/sec. After files are transferring for a bit, I get only kb to 1.1 MB/sec.
I have disconnected all wireless devices - am not on the internet - and still, it goes SOOOO slow.
I don't want to have to keep rebooting just to transfer files. Eventually, I want to connect media players/TVs to the server and be able to stream throughout the house. With rates this slow, that won't prove to be very happy.
I have browsed through several of the posts here already and even tried a number of fixes - nothing has helped.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
Try to use a program called IPERF and see what rates you can accomplish with this tool. This only tests the network it will not be degraded by other parts of the machine such as disk performance or cpu memory issues. It is extremely simple tool. If you get bad numbers on here it is likely going to be a device driver since the lan ports in a router should be able to easily pass 1g up and 1g down on all port simultaneously. Of course as pointed out above if you are really using the old cat5 cable upgrade to cat5e....still it is very hard to buy actual cat5 cables anymore so if its new it is likley cat5e.

If the iperf can get good rates you are going to need to ask one of the server guys for help since this is likely in the OS...
Well one thing of note, you should be using Cat6 cable not Cat5. At least Cat5E to try and get consistent gigabit speeds. You also will start to be limited to the hard drive transfer rates. You should test those to see the maximum you could see over the network.
 
Try to use a program called IPERF and see what rates you can accomplish with this tool. This only tests the network it will not be degraded by other parts of the machine such as disk performance or cpu memory issues. It is extremely simple tool. If you get bad numbers on here it is likely going to be a device driver since the lan ports in a router should be able to easily pass 1g up and 1g down on all port simultaneously. Of course as pointed out above if you are really using the old cat5 cable upgrade to cat5e....still it is very hard to buy actual cat5 cables anymore so if its new it is likley cat5e.

If the iperf can get good rates you are going to need to ask one of the server guys for help since this is likely in the OS someplace.
 
Solution