Real gigabit throughput on a LAN

[portcullis]

If I'm doing an installation at a business, I use 3Com or Cisco switches, CAT-6 cabling, with associated patch panels and patch leads as well as high end 3Com LAN cards.

We get gigabit throughput on the LAN.

In my own house I have D-Link cards in the machines that don't have on board gigabit cards. I also also have CAT-6 cabling, a Krone CAT-6 patch panel and patch leads, but I have a 16 port SMC Gigabit switch.

My fancy digital cable tester tells me that there's nothing wrong with the cabling.

But, I can't get more than 300Mb throughput between machines.

Is it simply an inferior switch or is there some something else I should be looking at to improve the throughput?

300Mb isn't bad, but it takes a while to move a 12GB file from one machine to another - at which stage the rest of the network's "just dead"

 

[ponder]

Check your SMC switch specs to see if it supports wire-speed, also check the backplane bandwidth.
It's probably just an inferior switch.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

why pay for cat6 ? i personally run cat5e and can copy at 100mbs windows speed, which is pretty much lan card maxed, though i don't fancy hardware, just gigabit switch from d-link.

even at lans its still pretty fast, with more then 1 guy copying, but normal switch probably wont be enough for business.

one lan we had d-link 24 port gigabit we got university, that thing moved, more then 1 guy 90mbs+ per pc, also cat5e.

 

[portcullis]

Check your SMC switch specs to see if it supports wire-speed, also check the backplane bandwidth.
It's probably just an inferior switch.

This is it.

 

[portcullis]

why pay for cat6 ?

Each to his own.

We have enough training and experience as well as a longstanding relationship with our cable and equipment supplies that enables us to write 15 year warranties on cabling jobs that we've done. We can't afford to get a call 12 years from now from a guy who's RJ45 wall boxes are starting to pack up because we bought the ones that were 10c a unit cheaper than the spec ones.

Also, putting a cabling system like that into my house increased it's value by about 20 times more than it cost me to put it in.

 

[ponder]

This is it.

It says wirespeed so it should cope.

Disconnect everything but two PCs and do a test transferring data between them.
Next disconnect the two PCs from the switch and connect them via a crossover cable and do the same test again.
Compare the results.

You will have to try a few things. It could be related to your NICs or it could even be an OS issue.

 

[ponder]

We have enough training and experience as well as a longstanding relationship with our cable and equipment supplies that enables us to write 15 year warranties on cabling jobs that we've done. We can't afford to get a call 12 years from now from a guy who's RJ45 wall boxes are starting to pack up because we bought the ones that were 10c a unit cheaper than the spec ones.

I don't follow the reasoning as the same argument is valid for CAT-5(e) as well. If you buy from a decent vendor like 3M, Krone etc you can also get the installation certified (Premisenet etc).