Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Real life network performance

At the moment, we have a 100 base T ethernet switch. I tried a Gigabit switch a few years ago at the dawn of Gigabit network cards, but it seemed buggy and not all that much faster in the end despite Cat 6 wiring. Maybe things have improved and I wonder if AC performance on our wired units would improve if I upgraded. Our other hardware is new, and Gigabit capable. Are any of you able to offer any real world comparisons between life on the two different networks with AC?

Obviously, putting in a gigabit switch is not going to help if the users are all connecting wirelessly, but even the hardwired stations see speed issues, especially in viewing imports and printing.

Similarly, for the wireless users; did anyone se any significant improvement by going to 802.11n?

I found a significant improvement with gigabit switch and cards. Some of the machines had giga cards, some I had to upgrade.

I found "n" to be more reliable at home, but I am hard wired in the office.

I had same experience with Gigabit router. Most cost-effective upgrade in office of anything electronic.

Well Cat6 is the way to go, but 5e will handle Gb transmission. The best way to find out would be to test it. First, if you do get a Gb switch and you want to know, get a managed switch as it will easily allow you to change the speeds. Short of that, most Ethernet cards will allow you to change speeds in the device manager. Generally, everything works best in automatic mode, but you can change it to 100 Full or 100 Half, etc. Try a computer on 1000 Full and see what speed you get in Amazing Utilities, then try it on 100 Full. Doesn't make sense why a SQL query wouldn't be lightning fast at 100Mbs. But, I don't recall what it was like at 100.

Any recommendations for a 32 port switch/ prices seem to be all over the map.

Do you need something that big? LinkSys is generally good.

I use an unmanaged 20 port US Robotics - you can just use 2 and get pretty cheap.

I bought a D-link 24 port Gigabit unmanaged switch from Amazon in 2008 (because of good feedback and reasonable price), and so far no downtime. Also has some positive feedback on Newegg.com, and it's cheaper.

Thanks. As to the size, yes; we do need a lot of ports. We have two different enterprises running off the network. Not very data intensive, but lots of ports.

Any idea why the huge price differential among switches? It looks like I can spend anywhere from $150 to $1500.

Some have QOS for VoIP. Some are managed while others are not. Some are just better quality.

What do you mean by two different enterprises?

My partner and I operate a company that provides drug testing services for the transportation industry (http://www.avtox.com) that shares office space, network, mailserver, firewall, and internet connection. It has its own workstations and database servers.

David,

Popped in to respond to your earlier post, so let me give a quick snap-shot.

From cheapest (and least to most improvement)

hub - switch(unmanaged) - switch(managed)

in and amongst switches, you will find layer 2, layer 2 plus, and layer 3.

The layer 3 switches are going to cost significantly more for 24-48 port GIG switches. If you have the room, I'd go with 2 16/24 port switches, and separate the two enterprises into two different network segments and bridge then into a shared segment (8-16 port switch) that has the servers, other shared network resources, and the firewall.

Because of what goes on inside it, a layer 2 GIGABIT Switch (as a minimum) will provide significantly better performance as it reduces network collisions and network contention (noise).

Hope that helps some, if you need additional help, please send a PM, as I'm not able to visit the forum often.

OK, so an update on the network issues.

Friday afternoon, our e-mail server blew a motherboard. This computer had also been doing the network address translation and port forwarding, and was pretty old, as the original firewall and mailserver system were installed over 20 years ago although had been upgraded piecemeal from time to time. The IT guys came in and patched around, using a more modern router for the firewall. In the process, everyone was hard-wired in all the rooms that were already plumbed for Ethernet, and the print drivers were moved to the individual workstations and off the server. This has resulted in an amazing speed increase in printing and imported items retrieval time, even for those units previously hard wired, well over 10 times. The Gigabit switches are on order, but not yet installed. Also, we will arrange to drop in Ethernet cable to the 4 exam rooms not already plumbed.

My experience exactly matches yours. Going from a peer-to-peer network to server-client (workgroup, not AD), there were constant complaints about slowness of the print and fax services through the server, as well as network printers "disappearing" from some of the workstations. We finally did exactly what you did (installing network print & fax drivers on the individual workgroup computers), and have very responsive printing now, and happier staff.

Although I realize that this has sacrificed some network security, as well as the ability to control access, this was overbalanced by running faster now. I have the suspicion that server software may be oversold for small organizations.

Thanks, John. As I said in another post, the IT guys had put the drivers on the server as it makes it easier for them to manage, and I understand their view ( also that their time is my money). But, it is way different if you are managing print drivers for 10 people vs 500, and our IT folks have been doing the latter at the hospital, and just sort of set us up the same way.

[quote=Bert] Try a computer on 1000 Full and see what speed you get in Amazing Utilities, then try it on 100 Full.

I'm not sure how to use Amazing Utilities to do this. If I do the "check Amazing Chart" option, the connection test shows "can't validate ports on remote computer". Everything is working fine, however. I'm a little nervous about rooting around blind in Utilities.

Most of the Amazing Utilities isn't meant to be run on any computer other than the main computer, therefore when running Check Amazing Charts, you probably only got two results, both passed, yet showing port errors. You would get the full six tests with no errors if you ran it on the main computer.

However, under Advanced Options | Test speed to/from databases..

You can run a query to the database to test your speed. This can be compared with the query on the main computer. The latter should always be faster not always. As an example, my server runs 0.131 and my clients average 0.146. From this I can surmise there is very little lag in my network.

I wouldn't worry about breaking anything with the utiities save moving databases. It's all rather safe.

Well, my server runs about .500 and the client .895 or thereabouts. How do I interpret that?

That means you sent a ping or query to the database, and it made it to SQL and back in half a second. On your network it took less than a second. I would say your interpretation is that your network is rather fast.

I'll report back after the Gigabit system is in place... guessing 2 weeks.

OK, installed the 48 port Gigabit switch. Ping times are:

On the server .480 to .500
100 Base-T switch .895
Gigabit switch .700

So, there is some difference. It is yet to be seen if it makes a real difference in day to day performance. It cost about $700.00. At least it cleaned up the rat's nest of daily-chained switches we had before.

And, Bert, how do you manage ping times of less than 0.200 sec?

How many computers?

There are about 26 ports in use, including printers. About 18 computers. And checking ping times after restart, I'm getting about .600 from the client.

Remind me what your initial issue was.

Printing and imported items loading were really slow. Moving the drivers to the workstations pretty well fixed the printing. I just have a greed for speed.

And your SQL version?

Also, an imported items file that used to take 25 seconds to load just now took 5.6. I'm happy.

How do I check the SQL version?

Yes, the larger files will show the biggest improvement over faster cables.

Well, that's a story onto itself. I was just talking about are you still using SQL Express?

We're using whatever shipped with Amazing Charts.

David - make model on the switch? Did you do any network segmentation?

Glad to hear things are better.

It is a Linksys SRW2048. We did not do network segregation, just to keep it simple.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

The SRW2028 is a great switch. We have the 2024. I believe it is managed and has PoE.

It has an IP address and administration account. I peeked in, saw probably 15 tabs with abbreviations for parameters that meant absolutely nothing to me, and I backed out quiet as a mouse. So either the IT guys have it managed, or anarchy is rampant.

By definition if it has an IP address, and you can log in, then it is a managed switch. You can go in all you want, and you will do no harm unless you make changes.

So, in relation to that, with a managed switch, you can make changes such as setting up VLANS or changing configurations. It is also nice to be able to label all of your ports as to where they go. With a managed switch, you can see at a glance what speeds all ports are giving you. So, it's a good idea to go in every once in awhile and check the speeds. If a particular port to a particular computer shows 100Mbs while it should be 1000Mbs, then you know there is an issue.

So, while many small LANs, do not need a managed switch, it is always nice to have one.

Sorry to interrupt the discussion. I'm new to the forum and I don't know how to send a question to the whole community. I'd like to find some offices that use AC in the Palm Beach - Broward area in South Florida. Interested in implementing the EHR but want to see it working live in some offices first and talk to some people. Thanks for the help.

Daniel, I'd suggest you re-post this as a new thread under general discussions, give it a subject line "looking for South Florida users" or something. That way it will show up as it's own title when users scan the topics. It's kind of hidden here.

Yes, Daniel. In this thread, the talk is all from Alaska and Maine. If you want to find someone in a sane climate, you should post elsewhere.