Tool to identify LAN bottleneck?

[Paddy]

My 100Mbps network is only operating at ~45% according to task manger. Is there any way to determine what might be the cause of this?

[Helevitia]

Well, you could download Ethereal and generate packets. But most likely the bottleneck is caused by a lot of things such as, packet overhead, low-end NIC card, slow CPU, PCI-bus on the mobo, etc...Also, if you test apps such as FTP in windows, you'll find it is much slower than some 3rd party apps. So there are a ton of possibilities. Oh, don't forget your switch, it could support 10 connections at 100Mbps each port, but maybe the entire switch only supports 500Mbps, so really it is 2:1 over-subscribed assuming line-rate with 64byte packets. Now, this is just an example, but I think you get the idea.

The smaller the packet size, the more overhead for the switch. This is why a lot of high end servers support jmbo frames. You can send 9000byte packets.

[Paddy]

Cheers mate.
I'll download Ethereal and see what it comes up with.
I'm happy running at ~50Mbps anyway. I just hope that when I install the WiFi component, it will operate around the same rate.

Cheers!

[Paddy]

Interesting how the speed slowly builds up.
I am burning an image across the network here. The transfer peaks at 63%

[Helevitia]

When you say you are burning an image, what exactly do you mean? You start up Nero(or something similar) and then point to an image on a network drive?

[ZokesPro]

The max I've seen on my network is 80% (100Mbps).

[Helevitia]

The max I've seen on my network is 80% (100Mbps).

It's almost impossible to get 100%. There are too many variables. Remember that 100Mbps is a theoretical max of 12.5MB/sec. I would say in a best case scenario, you will get 60-80% of that. Usually you see somewhere around 30-50%.

This is why I need to upgrade my NAS to Gigabit. It takes 1 second to download a few pictures. This is entirely too long when I am trying to download hundreds or thousands of pictures at once.

[Paddy]

I'll be comtempt then
Dave: Yeah, burning a image in nero from a network drive

[Dr Mordrid]

Go Gigabit. LOVE mine

[Helevitia]

Go Gigabit. LOVE mine

I want to, I really really do. But I am broke right now

On top of that, I would need to upgrade my NAS to Gb as well. Then I would need to get a gigabit switch. So between the NAS and switch, we are talking minimum $1200!!! Atleast for what I want

[Tjalfe]

I want to, I really really do. But I am broke right now

On top of that, I would need to upgrade my NAS to Gb as well. Then I would need to get a gigabit switch. So between the NAS and switch, we are talking minimum $1200!!! Atleast for what I want

Is that with employee discounts?

[Helevitia]

Is that with employee discounts?

You know what's funny, I went to the Linksys employee purchase program (EPP) page internally the other day and it told me that the program was being abolished since Linksys was now offering instant rebates. I'm not sure how that helps me but no more Linksys discounts for me