ExpressCard Gigabit adapter alternatives

The one dissapointment I have with my 9400 is the lack of a integrated Gigabit NIC. I couldn't justify the extra 1000 or so for the XPS, just for the Integrated Gigabit. I had to go with an Express Card Adapter.

Anyway...I have a Linksys Gigabit Express Card (EC1000) which I have a couple issues with:.
1- This 34mm express card slot leaves little to be desired. It's a very loose fit (when using a 34mm card), because the slot is for 54mm and 34mm, so the 34mm card is mostly supported where it mates with the connection, several inches in the slot, with no support where you connect your Network cable.
2- Why would they put this slot on the right side, where most of us use the mouse? It's totally in the way, especially wen you add the Network cable.

Sorry for the rant!

Now my questions:
1- Does anyone know of an Express card the utilizes the full 54mm slot so it fits nicely into the slot?
2- Does anyone know of an Gigabit Express Card adapter that slides in the slot with a dongle to plug in the Network cable?
3-Any other alternatives? Is it possible to replace the integrated 10/100 with a Gigabit?

note- I tried the Belkin USB 2.0 Gigabit adapter. The concept was perfect, the speeds where terrible. There are obvious reasons for speed issues but, I would have hoped I had enough headroom with 2.0 that my speeds would be the same as with PCI. I got about 7MBps per second transfer speeds across my network. I average 25MBps with the PCI card, so these speeds where on par for a 10/100 connection, which were unacceptable on a gigabit network.

I appreciate any advice or help.

thanks

 

A 100baseT is only good for 12.5MB/s MAX Theory, 10.5MB/s real numbers. Is this a typo???

25MB/s is what I get with my 1000baseT.

 

I have a gigabit network, sorry for the confusion.

 

Hey ZX10guy. I have both. My main office I connect to of PCs directly into the switch. The others are off additional Gigabit swtiches inline from the main switch.

BTW- You a member of the ZX10R.net site? If so, We meet again.

thanks for your help

 

lol, I thought I recognized the name. I'm K10 on the site.
Just to clarify, I'm not having any throughput issues? Well, unless you know how I can get faster than 25MBps? I did have issues when I used the USB 2.0 Gigabit adapter. It only gave me 7-8MBps.

If you use a 2.0 to gigabit adapter with better performance, I would love to know what it is. This would solve all my issues with the location and design of the silly PCIe slot, which is the jist of my post.

To be honest, I would love to get even faster speeds across my network (I guess we all would). Do you know if a NAS with SATA interface and gigabit connection would be faster than the 25MBps I'm getting now? Currently, I access all my files from a USB 2.0 external drive connected to a networkd PC. I was wondering if a NAS like the one mentioned above would eliminate obvious bottlenecks.

thanks again
T

 

Interesting question. I have been trying to get better than 30MB/s from my Yukon mini built in port on my desktop pc. All of the latest drives knock the speed down to 20MB/s, these are ftp speeds using FileZilla. I have a Snap4500 1.6T NAS. This unit test at 270mbps speed with 12 users. It is equipped with dual gigabit ports. It is connected to by Dlink DGS1216T gigabit switch. My pc also connects to the switch. No other hardware execpt my FVS338 router. I have even dropped off the router and still get the same speeds. My next step is a direct connection to the NAS to eliminate the switch. I know my NAS is not working hard because the disk led's only blink once every 10 sec or so. All of my cables are cat5e, purchased. I was expecting my HD to be the limiting factor, but it apears to be the Yukon on this 915G MB.

If you are using a NB with a 2.5" hd your max speeds will be 25MB/s with a 5400rpm. And ~50MB/s with a 7200rpm drive. My nb fills the 100baseT with no problem (11MB/s).

I'm still looking for my bottle neck. I'm thinking it's this pc.

 

Thats great information blue. Well, 270Mbps is 33.75 MBps, so you aren't far off, although 12 users would seem to tax it more.

A NB SATA drive is limited to 25MBps? I figured with SATA, It wouldn't be my bottleneck.

If you look at this tho, the fastest read speed is around 45MBps with a 256 file transfer. Thats with a DIY NAS. The other name brands are dissapointing to me. I would rather keep my old PC and run it as a standalone much like they did on that DIY project.

Does your NAS have a SATA or IDE interface?

thanks

 

Thanks ZX10Guy. You know, for me personally, I would love to just have network speeds equivelent to a USB 2.0 external drive thats connected to my PC. I process tons of large RAW images across my network. The processing is so much faster if I sit at my desktop (which has the external drive) and load them into my processing software.

I don't follow the HDD bottleneck theory.
If I can get speeds from USB that is acceptable. Why would the HDD be a botleneck when using PCIe or even PCI (which is rated,in theory , at like 133 MBps) ?

 

I don't want to drag this out, but I understand the theoretical speeds of the hardware as well as the RAID configurations.
What I'm curious about is why the HDD doesn't bottlneck the USB (maybe it does some, but the speeds are more than acceptable), but it would the PCI?
The speeds I get form the external drive are real. So I guess that's where I'm confused. Are you guys saying that if I updated to a 7200 RPM drive that my Gigabit speeds would be faster?

thanks

 

I think you have a point. The figures are to low, at least from a defragged modern disk. I just benchmarked my laptop drive and it topped out at 40MB/s and 3.5" 7200RPM are a lot better.

 

Thanks. That supports their theory that the HDD would be the bottleneck for a gigabit network.

So, does anyone know of a Express Card Gigabit adapter that has a dongle to connect the network cable to? This will atleast get the express card out of my way while I use the mouse.