GigaBit Speed

Never measured it myself but I know that when I move a large image file to my server it's a LOT faster on my Gigabit network. Also be aware that unless you're using CAT6 cables you may not get Gigabit speeds. Most cable you buy nowadays is CAT5E which will usually support gigabit, bit is subject to more interference than CAT6. Also if you make your own cables you will probably get nowhere near gigabit speeds. You don't hand crimp CAT6 unless you're a god. Lots of things affect data transfer rates. Don't forget, you're working at radio frequencies and this is not shielded cable - just twisted pairs. Just stapling a CAT6 cable, or running it over a power supply brick will cause loss of performance. Good tutorial here: http://www.lanshack.com/cat5e-tutorial.aspx

My files transfer much faster over gigbit then 10/100 But in vista (cant remember in XP) it will tell you the transfer rate. I am getting 8MB/sec. That doesn't sound fast ... but it transfers fast. Im just looking for a numerical comparison of what I should be getting. BTW: My wire is CAT6 but they were wired in the walls when I built my house, careful to cross power perpendicular and not parallel. So the cable is correct and the installation correct. Everything is terminated at a patch panel or a wall plate. Should be good enough for me :)

Vista is reporting MegaBYTES per second not MegaBITS per second so 8Mbyte/s is 70Mbit/s which is still slow. Sounds like you might be capping at 100Mbit/s. HOWEVER there are other factors. First off Vista is giving you an AVERAGE transfer speed. Burst speeds will be much faster. Second, your transfer rate is limited by the hardware on both ends. I've seen PCs that just couldn't do 1Gbit due to hardware bottlenecks at the NIC or the PCI bus or the hard drive subsystem. Third, if you haven't installed it yet there's a Windows Update for a bug in Vista that fixes slow network data transfer rates. Hope this helps!

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