upgrading to a gigabit switch, looking for program to test speeds

[BuckMaster]

Can anyone recommand a free program to d/l to test lan speeds?
Im about to upgrade to a gigabit switch and want to test my transfer speeds with my current 10/100 switch then test it again when i get my gigabit switch and see what kind of differance i will see if much at all transfering files from one PC to another PC.

I have my basement wired now with cat5E cable and jacks in the wall.

thanks!

 

[RadiclDreamer]

http://www.netchain.com/netcps/

netcps in server mode on one pc (netcps.exe -s)

netcps.exe servername on the other, whammo speed results.

 

[BuckMaster]

thanks!

 

[notposting]

I ended up just throwing a Linux iso all over the network to test my new gigabit goodness. Works pretty good.

 

[JackMDS]

The best way to measure network "speed" is to do a real transfer of large file (like 500MB) and measure the time.

Then 500 (or what ever the size is divided by the time in second tells you the real functional transfer transfer in MB/sec.

The programs like ipref and others measure in bursts of small files, and thus tend to yield better result than the realities of functional working.

 

[masteryoda34]

The best way to measure network "speed" is to do a real transfer of large file (like 500MB) and measure the time.

Then 500 (or what ever the size is divided by the time in second tells you the real functional transfer transfer in MB/sec.

The programs like ipref and others measure in bursts of small files, and thus tend to yield better result than the realities of functional working.

But if you transfer a large file, doesn't disk I/O become the limiting factor? E.G. Most hardrives have sequential reads/writes of under 125MB/s, the theoretical max for gigabit.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

But if you transfer a large file, doesn't disk I/O become the limiting factor? E.G. Most hardrives have sequential reads/writes of under 125MB/s, the theoretical max for gigabit.

I can be, thats what something like netcps is good, it doesnt write to disk.

 

[nanaki333]

just make sure whatever switch you get supports jumbo frames. i bought a cheap 5 port dlink with 9K frames, set my NAS and desktop to 9K and got about 75-85% NIC utilization copying to and from. best $25 upgrade to my LAN yet!

 

[JackMDS]

But if you transfer a large file, doesn't disk I/O become the limiting factor? E.G. Most hardrives have sequential reads/writes of under 125MB/s, the theoretical max for gigabit.

Sure the outcome is global.

But I guess that if someone is happy in knowing that in theory his Network his faster than what it really does it is a Good Psychological Boost.

I guess that nothing is wrong with a little balanced "self deceiving".

 

[Crusty]

Sure the outcome is global.

But I guess that if someone is happy in knowing that in theory his Network his faster than what it really does it is a Good Psychological Boost.

I guess that nothing is wrong with a little balanced "self deceiving".

There's nothing wrong with knowing your network can run at it's designed capacity, which is exactly what tools like iperf do. Just like there is nothing wrong with knowing how fast your PC can transfer a file using it's native protocols. Knowing one or the other and not both doesn't really help you at all though.

What good is it knowing that you can transfer a file at 25MB/s, but not knowing how fast your network can run? You might think you need to upgrade your HDDs to a huge RAID array to max out your network only to find out you've got a shitty cable somewhere(talk about a waste of money). There is solid practical applications to testing your network with tools like iperf, but it's not the end of testing your network.

 

[Fardringle]

I like LAN Bench. It has the same effect as the netcps that RadiclDreamer posted (no read/write to disk, just data pushed across the network connection) but it has a GUI so you don't need to type a command line and it's very easy to change options such as the length of the test and the number of simultaneous connections used. Not a big deal, I just like the GUI better.

 

[JackMDS]

@ Crusty

You are right. It is beneficial to know both.

I got caught with the fact that most time this type of threads are Starting with complains about the long time that it takes to transfer files over the network.

The OP here deserves credit for asking in more technical term.

 

[Emulex]

iperf

 

[notposting]

Fardringle, thanks for the LANBench pointer...I like the GUI

somewhere around 450 Mb/s....at least for one portion of the network.
will need to try on another portion that has 2 gb switches and pci nic involved.

 

[fuzzymath10]

I've been trying the console-based tests (netcps and iperf) and for whatever reason they end up stuck at like 8-10MB/sec on both 100M and 1G. In practice I get about 12MB/sec on 100M and 35MB/sec on 1G (which is what's worrying me).

Any thoughts? Sorry for the partial highjacking.

 

[Rifter]

I usually just make a 1GB ramdisk on either end and transfer a linux iso back and forth to test speed, works great. If you have a raid array at either end that can handle 150MB+ reads and writes that will work well too.

 

[BuckMaster]

Thanks guys nice reads! Just got my switch and will try and install it and do some testing this week!