HP Home Server & WHS file transfer results

People, this is going to be a big read because when I was doing the testing, I found more things then I anticipated.

First I am listing the equipment and stats that I used, some people will find it relevant or irrelevant, but it will give you a better idea to how my tests were done and an opportunity to offer or take advice .

The Home Server is a HP Mediasmart Server EX470, upgraded to 2 gigs of ram and cpu upgraded to a 2.6GHz AMD LE-1640 Orleans (45W), running Windows Home Server OS, with Power Pak 1 and one add-in (Diskeeper).

The desktop is a HP Elite M9340F with Q6700 (2.66 Quad Core) 6 gigs ram gigabit network, clean install of Vista x64 Home Premium and my stuff, Nod32 Smart Security AV &FW.

Laptop is a HP DV9548CA, Intel 2 Core Duo 1.66, 4 gigs ram, gigabit network, Intel Wireless 4965AGN card, clean install of Vista x64 Ultimate, my stuff, Nod Smart Security AV & FW

No I'm not a HP fanboy, it just happened this way this time.

Router is a Dlink DIR-825 gigabit enabled with simultaneous 2.4 GHz & 5GHz, wireless security is WPA2 on both bands.
The Desktop computer and HP Server are connected hardwired with Cat 6 cable, the HP Notebook is connected wirelessly, running N only at 5GHz.

Both computers calculation of transfer time were almost dead on with little discrepancy with my trusty low tech stopwatch.
The transfer of 14.5 GB from Desktop to Server was 3:32 minutes, at a peak of 84.5 MB/sec to a low of 69.3 MB/sec , and floated at 70.2 MB/sec most of the time, the transfer rate from Server to Desktop was about the same, averaging from 70-72 MB/sec at about the same 3:30 minutes.

The transfer from Laptop to Server, 14.5 GB was 23 minutes at 11.5 MB/sec, and about the same from Server to Laptop, the thing here is that I have done better then the 11.5 MB/sec I was doing on the test, I have done between 17-23 MB/sec before, but different things seem to be in play today.

Simultaneous download of same 14.5 GB file with hard wired Desktop and Laptop running N at 5GHz, this is where things get interesting, during the simultaneous download the Desktop was floating at 14.3-15.5 MB/sec for a total of 34 minutes, the Laptop was floating at 4.25-5.2 MB/sec for a total of 1 hour 20 min, as we know the Desktop will finish first, after about 10 minutes into the race I decided to shut down the transfer of the Laptop, the Desktop speeded up Immensely, the transfer time changed very quickly but the MB/sec climbed to 20 MB/sec and stayed there even though it was wrong , the Desktop was going much faster the 20 MB/sec.

Taking in mind I was putting more pressure on the Server and it capabilities, I found some discrepancies with the DIR-825 router, since I have had better through put before at N 5GHz and slightly but constant better with the superb and better single radio dual band DLG-4500 at N 5GHz, I had to investigate a little, at first I thought maybe with the DIR-825 I was getting some interference from radio 1 (2.4GHz) or somewhere else, so I shut radio 1 down, thinking the through put may rise, only to find the through put dropped by about 15%, then it came back to me, the DLG-4500 has an excellent manual QOS, which I set to my likings and it flew, the DIR-825 QOS was set to auto and traffic shaping, so its a matter of tweaking the settings on the 825, with the auto QOS and traffic shaping turned on, I'm not that concerned with the balance using both machines at the same time, but its something to look into eventually.

By the way, shutting wireless security off will give you 2-3 MB/sec faster .
Hope this helps a bit
Ray

 

Yikes! I love long-winded posts, but would it be possible to ask if you could add an extra carriage return at the end of each paragraph (or maybe each sentence if they're long enough) to make it a bit more readable?

 

Ya your right, but it did look good on ms word when I typed it out.