LAN Speed

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ASKER

1. what speed your network card will support in your workstation/laptop
so you mean each computer's NIC should support the speed.
2. what speed your network switch will support
what speeds do we have at present for LAN
3. type of cabling used on the network
what type of cable can we use for LAN

Why are you looking to increase the speed? Do you have a lot of data to move around the network?
how can i find out the data being utilized by the network.

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ASKER

suppose the switch supports 1GB and one of the machine supports 100MB and the other 1GB,will the machine with 1GB send/receive with 1GB and the one with 100MB will send/receive with 100MB or both the machine will send/receive with 100MB.
what do you mean by LAN cable.do i need to change the LAN cables to support 1GB,if yes what is it.
what switch should i go for

A machine that is connected at 1gb will always send and receive at speeds upto 1gb.

Imagine the scenario: -

Machine A is connected at 1gb
Machine B is connected at 100mb
Machine C is connected at 1gb

Machine A tries to send a file to Machine C - the file will be transmitted as fast as Machine C can receive which will be up to a maximum speed of 1gb.
Machine A tries to send a file to Machine B - the file will be transmitted as fast as Machine B can receive which will be up to a maximum speed of 100mb.

You have to remember that 1gb and 100mb are theoretical maximum speeds. In reality, you will not see the maximum speeds as there are other overheads which will slow things down. If you are copying data from physical memory to physical memory, then you will get a faster transmission rate. If you have to read/write to disk during the transmission process then that will slow the transmission rates down.

On a 1gb connection for a PC, you will typical send and receive at around 300mb maximum.

cables need to be a minimum of CAT 5E or CAT 6. The cable will be stamped with the type it is.

As for your switch, you haven't said what switch you have at the moment.

As I said in my previous post, a lot of other factors dictate network speed and the switch is just one of them.

ASKER

thanks for your comments. now as TheMak: mentioned the speed depends on 3 things,LAN card,cable and switch. do i need to use some special cables or the regular network cable will do.

ASKER

at present i have 4 switches.

2 16port D-Link switch.
2 5 port D-Link switch.

My original post #33151904 also detailed the factors that LAN speed.

My post #33154559 tells you what sort of cables you need to get 1gb connectivity - but this is dependant on your workstation having a 1gb network card.

You haven't said what model switches you have. D-LINK make lots of switches that could be 100mb or 1gb switches.

Cat 5 and Cat 5e UTP cables can support 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet. Although Cat 5 cable may support to some degree in Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps), it performs below standard during high-data transfer scenarios, so I do not recommend you to use Cat 5 cable in Gigabit Ethernet, use Cat 5e instead (of course Cat 6 is the best).

Cat 6 UTP cable is manufactured targeting on Gigabit Ethernet and backward compatible with 10/100 Mbps Ethernet. It performs better then Cat 5 cable with higher transmission rate and lower transmission error. If you plan to have Gigabit network, look for Cat 5e or Cat 6 UTP cables.

Regards,

ASKER

>> D-LINK make lots of switches that could be 100mb or 1gb switches.
DSS-8+ 8-Port 10/100 Desktop Switch
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=70

If http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=70 this is the switch you have, then it's a 100mb switch only.

ASKER

what is the max data trasnfer for 100 MB. how can i check to see if the network is getting congested

if you want GB speed you need to have Gigabit port in the switch.

ASKER

>>if you want GB speed you need to have Gigabit port in the switch.
and each machines.correct??

correct........ and don't forgot GB supported cable.........

ASKER

how can i check to see if the network is getting congested

yes
gigabit switch + gigabit workstation + cat 5e/cat 6 cable = 1gb connectivity

+ refer to my post #33154516

with the switches you have, you can't really monitor your network for congestion.

ASKER

>>with the switches you have, you can't really monitor your network for congestion.
what switch do you recon

how much money do you have???

how many connected devices do you have (servers, printers, workstations etc) ???

ASKER

i have around 40 local users,4 servers,1 printer

go for manageable switch and that will give you all options to monitor and see more thing going on in the switch.

ASKER

can you please name some of them.i mean recon some

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