Network drives....where does all the BW go?

[W1GUH]

So I've no got a gigabyte Ethernet network drive, a gigabyte USB 2.0 to Ethernet adapter, and a CAT6 cable. All the status reported by Vista says 1Gb speed throughout, yet, on a current transfer, I'm get a "whopping" 3.38 MB bw. Where's the rest of the 125 MB bw? Sitting around being lazy?

At least it went up by an order of magnitude when I replaced the CAT5 cable.

Network drives don't make a good storage device for working on big files!

[n6hcm]

Network drives don't make a good storage device for working on big files!

the fastest connection is always the most direct connection. using "gigabyte" usb 2.0 to ethernet adapters are costly performance-wise. the output of the USB side is, well, a serial line and something (your computer) has to turn that stream into something useful. the driver does this. the driver does this by using the processing power in your computer

also, the USB bus is connected to the computer with another bus (and so another translation).

ideally you'd like a disk connected to your system with its native interface (SATA, SAS, SCSI, ...), and that native interface interface is connected to other system components in the most efficient way.

absent that possibility, an ethernet network interface that's built onto the motherboard (this usually has the most direct interface to everything else) to connect to your NAS-style storage.

any time you convert you lose bandwidth. anytime you rely on user-installed software to do what hardware could do you lose performance.

USB disks? they're convenient but there's at least one extra conversion that you don't need (hard disks don't come natively with USB support--there's a SATA-to-USB conversion in the box).

[n6hcm]

oh yeah--what are you connecting these network connections to? a 100Mb/s hub? a decent ethernet switch? using a xover cable between devices?

[W1GUH]

Well, all's what it should be. gigabit ethernet adapter, CAT6 cable, gigabit ethernet drive. Performance sucks, and I'm not going to throw away more time in the infinite sinkhole of immature technology. That last opinion comes from google-fu. Google "network drive problems" and you'll turn up LOTS and LOTS of problems. With performance issues, hang-ups..you name it. And all of the big 3 OS's are represented. XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Smacks of a technology that's not really "ready for the masses" yet. That's a red flag to me....says if I want to improve this, it's going to be LOTS of messing around. Can't be bothered with that. Better off just getting another USB, or maybe Firewire (don't know about that -- but I've got a port for it) drive eliminates this hassle.

And I turned up yet another problem....booting became unacceptably slow. Dunno why, Windows is pretty opaque when it's booting and give no indication of what it's doing. (IMHO, it's probably masturbating & can't be bothered!).

So....a network drive is not an appropriate technology for what I wanted.

Anyone want to buy a Network Drive cheap? Comes with the adapter & a CAT6 cable and the software. Cheap. Shiiping charges only. That's a genuine offer. Just want to get rid of it.

[KJ3N]

Anyone want to buy a Network Drive cheap? Comes with the adapter & a CAT6 cable and the software. Cheap. Shiiping charges only. That's a genuine offer. Just want to get rid of it.

I'll play with it for a while. Don't really need it, but I'm curious.

[N1LAF]

And a 100Mb throughput is near 10Mbyte/sec.

Get yourself a USB3 to PCI express card, and use a USB 3 drive. USB 3 is rated for 5Gb/s, SATA II is 3Gb/s. I transferred a 5 Gbyte file from one internal hard drive to another (both SATA II), taking 73 seconds to transfer. The same file was copied to another SATA II drive on a USB 3.0 connection, and it took 80 seconds, which is near internal HD transfer speed.

Right now, USB 3.0 is the way to go in transferring large files.

[W1GUH]

And a 100Mb throughput is near 10Mbyte/sec.

Get yourself a USB3 to PCI express card, and use a USB 3 drive. USB 3 is rated for 5Gb/s, SATA II is 3Gb/s. I transferred a 5 Gbyte file from one internal hard drive to another (both SATA II), taking 73 seconds to transfer. The same file was copied to another SATA II drive on a USB 3.0 connection, and it took 80 seconds, which is near internal HD transfer speed.

Right now, USB 3.0 is the way to go in transferring large files.

Laptop. No can do. Want drive for free? I'll drive it up and drop it off.

[N1LAF]

How about this....

SYBA SD-EXP20070 USB 3.0 Type-II Slim Flush Mount ExpressCard/34mm for Laptop PC
$19.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16839328042

[kf0rt]

Get a Synology DiskStation, Paul. On gigabit Ethernet, these babies scream. And they appear to work without futzing around.

[KC2UGV]

Well, all's what it should be. gigabit ethernet adapter, CAT6 cable, gigabit ethernet drive. Performance sucks, and I'm not going to throw away more time in the infinite sinkhole of immature technology. That last opinion comes from google-fu. Google "network drive problems" and you'll turn up LOTS and LOTS of problems. With performance issues, hang-ups..you name it. And all of the big 3 OS's are represented. XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Smacks of a technology that's not really "ready for the masses" yet. That's a red flag to me....says if I want to improve this, it's going to be LOTS of messing around. Can't be bothered with that. Better off just getting another USB, or maybe Firewire (don't know about that -- but I've got a port for it) drive eliminates this hassle.

And I turned up yet another problem....booting became unacceptably slow. Dunno why, Windows is pretty opaque when it's booting and give no indication of what it's doing. (IMHO, it's probably masturbating & can't be bothered!).

So....a network drive is not an appropriate technology for what I wanted.

Anyone want to buy a Network Drive cheap? Comes with the adapter & a CAT6 cable and the software. Cheap. Shiiping charges only. That's a genuine offer. Just want to get rid of it.

Yeah, it might be the drive you are using, as well. I have an HP NAS that runs comparable to my SATA drives... Then again, I am using the Linux iSCSI drivers.

So, it might not be the network drive technology, but rather the particular drive you are using. The HP NAS came from an enterprise environment, and there were no complaints there.

So, another question is: How are you connecting to the network drive? What technology are you using? SMB (Aka Windows Shares)? iSCSI?