Copying via network slow, but local hdd fast

[Morne]

Calling all clever people again.

I'm using Vista 64 bit SP1 to copy 200Gig over a 100meg network and I'm getting transfer rates of only about 3 or 4mb/sec and an estimated time of 6 hours.
If I copy the same data to another hdd on the local machine I get transfers of about 55mb/sec and estimated time of 50 minutes.

Why is the network so slow?
(There are only 2 machines on the network)
usual CAT5e cables etc.
Am I missing something? I thought Vista SP1 was suppose to fix this problem.

I'm copying to a UNC path location and not a mapped drive.

HELP!

Morne

[Morne]

Anybody have any ideas?
(I cant physically remove the hdd and put it in another pc) There is also no other network traffic besides the copying so I need to speed things up a bit.

[plastic_]

well 100mbit isn't very fast to begin with...remember, it's megabit not megabyte...
so 100mbit are 12.5 megabyte...and networks are always slower than the theoretical bandwith.
if you got cat5e cables you can use a gigabyte switch, that would be much faster.

[dlparisi]

if you got cat5e cables you can use a gigabyte switch, that would be much faster.

Assuming you also have gigabit ethernet on each machine as well. If you only have 10/100 on each machine the gigabit switch isn't going to help much.

[Morne]

both machines are 1000, but network switch is only 100. But even so. Why on 100 do I only get 2 or 3 transfer rate? There are no other computers on the network and also no other network traffic.

[plastic_]

as i explained, it's 100 bits per second, not bytes per second.
and this would be the maximum theoretical bandwith, which is never reached, especially with cheap hardware.

[RErender]

There is a small chance that the nics are running at 10mb/s you could try going into their settings and manually set the speed to 100 full duplex instead of auto. Most likely though Plastic is right and the hardware just can't deal with the saturation.

[Morne]

its the onboard LAN with the latest drivers from Intel's BAD AXE2 motherboard and they are connected at 100 via a switch. I'll probably move the switch somewhere else and just get a new 1000 switch.

[instinct]

mind you that actual throughput also depends on the protocol. you'll never max out a GBit connection with a samba share for example.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[Pixelab]

There is a bug in vista that slows down the transfer when you are playing sound. I don't think it was really corrected in SP1 (the improvement was more on the implentation of SAMBA 2)

More info here : http://courtneymalone.com/2007/08/28...network-speed/

your max speed should be around 10Mb/s, consider buying a Gb router to increase it to at least 40Mb/s