Advice for improving throughput

Howdy-

We're getting ready to bring a system online that will be transferring
roughly 4GB/4000 files at different times during the day.

The connection is 1GB/Full Duplex & the file server to which the data is
being copied is not heavily loaded, but the test copy transfer rates
seem to be awfully slow.

Are there any good ways to improve throughput from the client side?

Client is Windows XP, SP2 w/pretty decent hardware specs...

TIA,
Brian

What speeds roughly? Ctrl alt del and look at networking tab. Whenever I
transfer files between computers in my 100Mb network, I see roughly 50% -
75% network utilisation. Occasionally it spikes over 90% but sustained
transfer rate is between 50% -75%.
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Brian MXP" wrote in message
...
Howdy-

We're getting ready to bring a system online that will be transferring
roughly 4GB/4000 files at different times during the day.

The connection is 1GB/Full Duplex & the file server to which the data is
being copied is not heavily loaded, but the test copy transfer rates seem
to be awfully slow.

Are there any good ways to improve throughput from the client side?

Client is Windows XP, SP2 w/pretty decent hardware specs...

TIA,
Brian

Glen-

I didn't see it personally, but our network engineer and one of the
application specialists saw it 'cap out' at only 12%, which makes me
think something locally on the machine isn't quite right or could use
some tuning...

How do you get your network utilization so high?

Thanks,
Brian

Glen wrote:
What speeds roughly? Ctrl alt del and look at networking tab. Whenever I
transfer files between computers in my 100Mb network, I see roughly 50% -
75% network utilisation. Occasionally it spikes over 90% but sustained
transfer rate is between 50% -75%.

I just checked as I wrote that last post from memory. Transfer is now
between 30% and 50% although I do have some other things going on (not
network related) and Im not sure if they will affect things. I'm copying a
2.5 GB file from one computer then back again.

To be honest I haven't done any optimisation it is literally out of the box.
I have 1 x 10/100Mb card on a 733 Pentium 3 computer and a Gb card in a 3
GHz Pentium 4 computer both cabled into a router. I used to have a 2GHz P4
in place of the 733 but the CPU failed. As things like AV and antispyware
have to check the file being moved, a slower computer with less overall ram
must be slower to move a file across a network. My 733 has 512 ram and due
to what I use it for it really needs more as page file usage is always high.
That might make a difference and why I remember network utilisation higher
in my old system.

You might get better, more specific advice posting to the network group as
those guys who deal with networks would have more specialized knowledge.
Although as I said mine is as it comes out the box. Have you or someone else
tweaked the network. Some customisations actually make things worse. I know
in the past I tried tweaking my internet and never made it better than
standard. Same principle for LAN.

Network Group
Microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Brian MXP" wrote in message
...
Glen-

I didn't see it personally, but our network engineer and one of the
application specialists saw it 'cap out' at only 12%, which makes me think
something locally on the machine isn't quite right or could use some
tuning...

How do you get your network utilization so high?

Thanks,
Brian

Glen wrote:
What speeds roughly? Ctrl alt del and look at networking tab. Whenever I
transfer files between computers in my 100Mb network, I see roughly 50% -
75% network utilisation. Occasionally it spikes over 90% but sustained
transfer rate is between 50% -75%.

I wrote that last post after copying the file from the 733 to the 3GHz. I
just now moved it back and the speeds are between 50% and 77% so it does
make a big difference having a computer with enough memory and CPU speed.

So your speeds of around 12% does seem to be poor utilisation given you say
they have decent specs. Hopefully what I've written will give you some help
in what to expect.
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Glen" wrote in message
...
I just checked as I wrote that last post from memory. Transfer is now
between 30% and 50% although I do have some other things going on (not
network related) and Im not sure if they will affect things. I'm copying a
2.5 GB file from one computer then back again.

To be honest I haven't done any optimisation it is literally out of the
box. I have 1 x 10/100Mb card on a 733 Pentium 3 computer and a Gb card in
a 3 GHz Pentium 4 computer both cabled into a router. I used to have a
2GHz P4 in place of the 733 but the CPU failed. As things like AV and
antispyware have to check the file being moved, a slower computer with
less overall ram must be slower to move a file across a network. My 733
has 512 ram and due to what I use it for it really needs more as page file
usage is always high. That might make a difference and why I remember
network utilisation higher in my old system.

You might get better, more specific advice posting to the network group as
those guys who deal with networks would have more specialized knowledge.
Although as I said mine is as it comes out the box. Have you or someone
else tweaked the network. Some customisations actually make things worse.
I know in the past I tried tweaking my internet and never made it better
than standard. Same principle for LAN.

Network Group
Microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Brian MXP" wrote in message
...
Glen-

I didn't see it personally, but our network engineer and one of the
application specialists saw it 'cap out' at only 12%, which makes me
think something locally on the machine isn't quite right or could use
some tuning...

How do you get your network utilization so high?

Thanks,
Brian

Glen wrote:
What speeds roughly? Ctrl alt del and look at networking tab. Whenever I
transfer files between computers in my 100Mb network, I see roughly
50% - 75% network utilisation. Occasionally it spikes over 90% but
sustained transfer rate is between 50% -75%.

Glen-

Thanks for the solid background; I'm finally going to be able to get a
first look at the machine today & will check specs & basic configuration
to see if there's any obvious bottlenecks in place like you mentioned...
& thanks for the advice the networking group.

Thx,
B

Glen wrote:
I wrote that last post after copying the file from the 733 to the 3GHz. I
just now moved it back and the speeds are between 50% and 77% so it does
make a big difference having a computer with enough memory and CPU speed.

So your speeds of around 12% does seem to be poor utilisation given you say
they have decent specs. Hopefully what I've written will give you some help
in what to expect.