Gigabit ethernet vs. ?

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

  1. Posts : 47
    Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
       #1

    Gigabit ethernet vs. ?


    currently using a Gigabit Ethernet card. Does firewire have a faster transfer rate for MB/s?. Currently getting around 50 MB/s transfer bewteen computers did some google research just wondering how I can get something way faster thanks
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 28,845
    Win 8 Release candidate 8400
       #2

    KCINREBAK said:
    currently using a Gigabit Ethernet card. Does firewire have a faster transfer rate for MB/s?. Currently getting around 50 MB/s transfer bewteen computers did some google research just wondering how I can get something way faster thanks
    Firewire is somewhat faster, but if you really want to go fast its fiber optic.

    What do you need to go that fast for?

    Ken
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 196
    Windows 7
       #3

    If you are only getting 50 Mbit/s it sounds like not all of your network is gigabit. Your hub or switch and also the computer on the other end all need to be gigabit enabled. Your network will only go as fast as the slowest component.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 47
    Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Lots of HD movie transfers thats what I needed the speed for.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 190
    windows 8.1 Pro x64
       #5

    Sustained 50MB/s is quite good. I find hard drives to be the most limiting factor in transfer speeds imho
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 7,878
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #6

    Well, firewire 400 runs at 400 megabits per second and firewire 800 runs at 800 megabits per second. Gigabit Ethernet runs at 1000 megabits per second....so technically gigabit ethernet is faster.

    Theoretically, 100 megabits per second comes out to roughtly 12.5 megabytes per second and gigabit comes out to roughtly 125 megabytes per second. These are in a perfect world with no overhead whatsoever. For reference purposes, I usually factor in about 85% of the possible as the real world max...so 85% of 125 megabytes per second is 106 megabytes per second.

    As somebody else pointed out. There aren't that many mechanical hard drives which can sustain data transfer rates of 100 megabytes per second. Most are in the 60-80 megabyte per second rate. So, if your rates across the network are 50 megabytes per second or more...that's about as good as it's going to get.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 196
    Windows 7
       #7

    pparks1 can you help me calculate this? I just can't get my head around all the conversions. Can you tell me megabits per second or is it megabytes per second?

    I was able to transfer from my workstation to a network server:

    Size on disk: 19.8 GB (21,283,614,720 bytes)
    in... 7 minutes 42 seconds
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 79
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #8

    I did some testing of gigabit network speeds of Windows Server and a Debian server running Samba 3 to several workstations running a variety of Windows OS's. The two servers were of identical hardware, here is what I found:

    1 big flat file of 4.8GB – Server to Client – Windows = 75MB/s average, Samba = 130MB/s average
    1 big flat file of 4.8GB – Client to Server – Windows = 40MB/s average, Samba = 85MB/s average

    Directory of 20x 50MB files – Server to Client – Windows = 65MB/s average, Samba = 90MB/s average
    Directory of 20x 50MB files – Client to Server – Windows = 60MB/s average, Samba = 80MB/s average

    So overall I found Samba based File Servers are quicker at distributing files.
    Not really an answer to the original question but people may find the results interesting none the less.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 7,878
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #9

    ultraplanet said:
    pparks1 can you help me calculate this? I just can't get my head around all the conversions. Can you tell me megabits per second or is it megabytes per second?
    Generally speaking, network speeds are rated in megabits per second. So, with ethernet, we have had 10 megabits per second, 100 megabits per second and with gigabit we have 1000 megabits per second.

    Generally speaking, a megabit per second is noted as Mbit/s, or Mb/s or Mbps. A megabit per second equates to

    • 1,000,000 bits per second
    • 1,000 kilobits per second

    To convert bits to bytes, you want to divide the # of bits by 8 to get bytes. Therefore, a megabit per second equates to

    • 125,000 bytes per second


    With a gigabit per second, the notation is Gbit/s, Gb/s or Gbps. A gigabit per second equates to

    • 1,000,000,000 bits per second
    • 1,000,000 kilobits per second
    • 1,000 megabits per second

    Again, to convert bits to bytes, divide the bits by 8 to get bytes. Therefore, a gigabit per second equates to

    • 125,000,000 bytes per second


    ultraplanet said:
    I was able to transfer from my workstation to a network server:

    Size on disk: 19.8 GB (21,283,614,720 bytes)
    in... 7 minutes 42 seconds
    Doing the math here, 46,068,430 bytes per second is what you are getting. As you said before, that is nearing 50 megabytes per second.

    Depending upon your hard drive speeds, that might be about the best you are going to see. You would have to benchmark your hard drives to see how fast your workstation hard drive is. If it only gets 60MB/s then you certainly won't get 100MB/s from your network The theoretical max of gigabit ethernet is 125MB/s...but about 80% is all that will ever be utilized is 100 MB/s
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 125
    Windows 7 Pro x64
       #10

    ultraplanet said:
    If you are only getting 50 Mbit/s it sounds like not all of your network is gigabit. Your hub or switch and also the computer on the other end all need to be gigabit enabled. Your network will only go as fast as the slowest component.
    Is this true if the slowest device is at the end of the network instead of in the middle of it and I was only transferring between the gigabit devices?

    In other words, if I have this configuration:

    Desktop -> Switch -> NAS -> Router to Internet

    and all devices are gigabit cabled with Cat5e except for the router (which is 10/100 Mb), would the router outside of my transfer scenario cause the entire network to be slower? I also experience much slower transfer rates than I thought I would see on 10/100/1000 network devices.

    This area of computing knowledge has always been one of my weakest.
      My Computer


 
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 17:28.
Find Us