Will I experience significantly faster exchange on my home LAN then with
100baseT thats there now?
Is there a bottle neck limitation in the PC that limits the max amount of
effective throughput to the point where it wont make much difference to hang
a GIGABIT LAN around it?
I have 4 PCs on a home LAN I was considering doing this for to improve HD
backup times I do to a server and to help with other shared bandwidth issues
we are starting to see with the kids playing online games, backups and such.

Any thoughts to suggest if this its worth the trouble to swap out NICs and
router to the GIGBIT world?.

Thank for any insights

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jtsnow wrote:
> Will I experience significantly faster exchange on my home LAN then with
> 100baseT thats there now?
> Is there a bottle neck limitation in the PC that limits the max amount of
> effective throughput to the point where it wont make much difference to ha
ng
> a GIGABIT LAN around it?
> I have 4 PCs on a home LAN I was considering doing this for to improve HD
> backup times I do to a server and to help with other shared bandwidth issu
es
> we are starting to see with the kids playing online games, backups and such.[/vbco
l]

There's only a 'shared bandwidth issue' with backup if you're backing up
more than one PC concurrently to the server.  And if you're doing
file-structured backups, there's a good chance that you're not even
close to saturating the bandwidth you already have:  streaming disk
bandwidth can reach 30 - 60 MB/sec from a single disk, but
file-structured accesses are often less than 10% of those figures
(unless you're streaming *large* files like video, or at least
unfragmented audio).

Contemporary PC processors can fairly easily drive the 10 - 12 MB/sec
rates achievable with Fast Ethernet.  They may have difficulty handling
ten times that rate, however, unless helped by 'offload' hardware in the
NIC.

Unless you've got considerably better than typical broadband access to
the outside world, nothing you do there will even begin to tax the
network you already have.
[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Any thoughts to suggest if this its worth the trouble to swap out NICs and
> router to the GIGBIT world?.

Wouldn't seem so to me, based on what you've said - unless you're doing
something like bulk-copying entire partitions for your backups.

- bill

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> bandwidth can reach 30 - 60 MB/sec from a single disk, but
> file-structured accesses are often less than 10% of those figures
> (unless you're streaming *large* files like video, or at least
> unfragmented audio).

Yes. Using "tar" to move a heap of files to another disk is _times_ faster t
hen
using "cp". tar is very optimal in terms of archive writing. It saturated my
disk subsystem today (a mirror of 2 Segate Cheetah).

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

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very nice input...thanks!   the backups I do are images...via Ghost.  It
sounds like I would not see a big improvement as my PC even now bogs way
down handling the 100baseT backups from other PCs. My PC is the one handling
the externa HD drive for backup.
thanks again!

"Bill Todd" <billtodd@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:eIidnVM6BOMwe2PcRVn-gQ@metrocastcablevision.com...
> jtsnow wrote: 
>
> There's only a 'shared bandwidth issue' with backup if you're backing up
> more than one PC concurrently to the server.  And if you're doing
> file-structured backups, there's a good chance that you're not even close
> to saturating the bandwidth you already have:  streaming disk bandwidth
> can reach 30 - 60 MB/sec from a single disk, but file-structured accesses
> are often less than 10% of those figures (unless you're streaming *large*
> files like video, or at least unfragmented audio).
>
> Contemporary PC processors can fairly easily drive the 10 - 12 MB/sec
> rates achievable with Fast Ethernet.  They may have difficulty handling
> ten times that rate, however, unless helped by 'offload' hardware in the
> NIC.
>
> Unless you've got considerably better than typical broadband access to the
> outside world, nothing you do there will even begin to tax the network you
> already have.
> 
>
> Wouldn't seem so to me, based on what you've said - unless you're doing
> something like bulk-copying entire partitions for your backups.
>
> - bill

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"jtsnow" <jtsnow@yahoo.com> writes:

>Will I experience significantly faster exchange on my home LAN then with
>100baseT thats there now?
>Is there a bottle neck limitation in the PC that limits the max amount of
>effective throughput to the point where it wont make much difference to han
g
>a GIGABIT LAN around it?
>I have 4 PCs on a home LAN I was considering doing this for to improve HD
>backup times I do to a server and to help with other shared bandwidth issue
s
>we are starting to see with the kids playing online games, backups and such.[/vbcol
]
[vbcol=seagreen]
>Any thoughts to suggest if this its worth the trouble to swap out NICs and
>router to the GIGBIT world?.

>Thank for any insights


With a home PC, you are quite likely to be bottlenecked
on the disk rather than the network.

Gigabit can be disappointing unless you have cards
and switches that support jumbo frames.

Otoh, with sale cards costing $15 and switches at $15/port,
it's hard to say no if you are looking into the future.

-dB

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