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    Gigabit LAN

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by MassiveOverkill, Nov 2, 2010.

  1. MassiveOverkill

    MassiveOverkill Notebook Consultant

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    MassiveOverkill, Nov 2, 2010
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  2. Lithus

    Lithus NBR Janitor

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    Bottom of page:
    USB 2.0 is 480.
     
    Lithus, Nov 2, 2010
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  3. MassiveOverkill

    MassiveOverkill Notebook Consultant

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    Correct.

    So 480/8= 60MB/s theoretical max
    100 Mb LAN is 100/8 =12.5MB/s theoretical max

    So it's still roughly 5 times faster than the stock 10/100 LAN connection, even though it doesn't reach Gigabit speeds.
     
    MassiveOverkill, Nov 3, 2010
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  4. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    Despite the theoretical limit of USB 2.0 being ~60MBps, the actual transfer speed is much lower. For example, we see USB 2.0 hard drives hit around 30MBps - 35MBps, so we know that we are not getting anywhere near the theoretical.

    We also see that 100Mbps (12.5MBps theoretical) actually hits around 8MBps - 9MBps in practice.

    I think everyone reading this thread will come to the same conclusion: this adapter is better than 100MBps, but nowhere near true gigabit ethernet, and probably not worth the hassle/money.
     
    kent1146, Nov 3, 2010
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  5. headphones989

    headphones989 Notebook Consultant

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    idk, $30 tiny plug and play adapter doesn't seem like much to up your speeds if you're a really heavy user... even by your theoretical comparison, it's 3X faster
     
    headphones989, Nov 3, 2010
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  6. nox_uk

    nox_uk Notebook Consultant

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    not having gigabit lan is silly, espically these days, and especially on such a laptop. That said, it is only midly annoying, I won't be transfering massive amounts of data to or from it, so... I'll live with it.

    Nox
     
    nox_uk, Nov 3, 2010
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  7. MassiveOverkill

    MassiveOverkill Notebook Consultant

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    I've gotten 12.5 on 10/100 as well as 60MB/sec on USB2.0, although the latter was rare. The latter I got on a WD 2.5" drive and my guess it was using some kind of dual-channel technology becuase I was floored at the USB 2.0 transfer speeds I was getting.

    Even in your example, if you get 8MB/s via 10/100 and only get 30MB/s on the USB/ethernet adapter, that's still nearly 4 times faster.
     
    MassiveOverkill, Nov 3, 2010
    #7