Poor Network Throughput (Windows XP)

[ta2]

Hiya,

I have a DFI Motherboard with two SATA hard drives in a RAID 0 array. The maximum read rate of this is 112MB/second measured by SiSoft Sandra (896Mbps). This computer is an Athlon64 3100+. When reading over the network from this computer (massive files) the sustainted transfer rate is 10-11% of the 1Gbps network connection (107Mbps). In addition, the CPU of this computer is totally maxed during file transfer (the process named "SYSTEM" goes to 90% CPU usage or more).

When I read files from my other computer (an Athlon64 3700+) I get sustained transfer rate of 14-15% network speed (148Mbps). As with the other computer, the CPU is totally maxed by the "SYSTEM" process. The computer that is receiving the data has nearly 0% CPU usage in both cases.

All of the network components are capable of 1Gbps transfer rate. I am currently sharing the files through Windows XP file sharing.

Is there any way to decrease CPU usage and increase network throughput? Is it the fault of windows? Are other operating systems better at network throughput?



Any help is very much appreciated, thank you!

[dave87]

Jumbo Frames may or may not help (never understood that).

The other option is to buy a dedicated Gigabit NIC (ie not on the motherboard) - as this should be CPU independant

[Moby-Dick]

I suspect you'll be lucky to ever get more than about 400mbit/sec without a very fast disk subsystem ( SCSI / Fibre Channel ) - other factors come into play

a separate NIC will probably help. Is AV software enabled on the server computer ?

try connecting the machines by a direct crossover cable ( and ensure its a proper CAT 6 cable. )

remember that quoted speeds and theoretical benchmarks are just that. They are achieved for a given set of parameters , designed to let you compare components for similar tests.

'real world' performance is invariably disappointing - look at quoted WiFi speeds - the chance of actually getting them in practice is laughable.

[ta2]

The bottleneck is the CPU at the moment. It gets maxed out. Is there any way to reduce the CPU usage in windows of the network connection (i.e. by changing the settings) or maybe another operating system (or even a server OS) that will give me a lower CPU usage/higher throughput.

Or is it the fact that it is onboard NIC the reason why it maxes out the CPU?

Cheers.

[dave87]

Or is it the fact that it is onboard NIC the reason why it maxes out the CPU?

Cheers.

Bingo

The onboard NIC will use the CPU to do all calculations, and as such maxxes out the CPU. A dedicated card should take the load off the CPU, increasing throughput.

Dave