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Testing speed of an ethernet connection

VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Testing speed of an ethernet connection

Is there any way of testing the local speed of a wired ethernet connection (not internet)?
For example, everything goes via a 100Mbit switch (with a connection to the router for various stuff) and but ideally I'd like to avoid a second PC.
My main PC uses ethernet over power-plugs...

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

17 REPLIES 17
MartyPop
Rising Star
Posts: 137
Thanks: 13
Registered: ‎01-10-2014

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

I use LAN Speed Test(Lite) which is available from here: http://www.totusoft.com/index.html
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

MartyPop,
Never knew about that until now, here are my results:
Version 1.3.1
OS Version: Windows 8
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4765T CPU @ 2.00GHz
Date: 10/23/2014
Time: 14:10:06
Program Parameters: 0
High Performance Timer: 0.0000005132
Test File: \\NAS\Public\NW_SpeedTest.dat
Write Time = 1.1723559 Seconds
Write Speed = 682.3866240 Mbps
Read Time = 0.9891923 Seconds
Read Speed = 808.7406160 Mbps
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

A Linux version would be nice...

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

HI VileFox
Is this any use :
http://deice.daug.net/netcat_speed.html
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

It looks great.
I shall have to wire up a laptop to try it (nearly everything is wireless).
I tried http://www.totusoft.com/index.html on a Windows partition (wireless)
Quote
Version 1.3.1
OS Version: Windows 7
Processor: AMD C-60 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
Date: 10/23/2014
Time: 15:31:09
Program Parameters: 0
High Performance Timer: 0.0000010258
Test File: C:\Windows\temp\NW_SpeedTest.dat
Write Time = 0.2848029 Seconds
Write Speed = 2,808.9602240 Mbps
Read Time = 1.3480628 Seconds
Read Speed = 593.4441680 Mbps

That's for a 100MB file????
It's out by a factor of 100 or more.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

Yes, it's for a 100MB file.
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

VileFox,
Did you manage to make any progress with this?
What is out by a factor of 100 or more?

PeeGee
Pro
Posts: 1,217
Thanks: 84
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎05-04-2009

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

I must get one of those - 3GBps data transfer, that's 4 to 6 times Gbe speeds Shocked Roll_eyes  Probably not far off 6Gbps SATA buffering speeds though (I can't be bothered to calculate the speed reduction for SATA3 drives in a RAID writing sequential 4k sectors with a 64MB cache Wink - probably "not a lot" as two 64MB caches would hold all 100MB).
Phil
Plusnet FTTC (Sep 2014), Essentials (Feb 2013); ADSL (Apr 2009); Customer since Jan 2004 (on 28kb dial-up)
Using a TP-Link Archer VR600 modem-router.
nanotm
Pro
Posts: 5,756
Thanks: 156
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2013

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

if your using home plugs you should install the utility software they came with and just look at the network speed (every plug will likely be different) there's a lot of network monitoring options around but personally I just open the page in the router that tells me what my lan speed is .....
if I use the router utility program I can even monitor the speed of individual devices, not possible with some routers I appreciate but you don't strike me as the kind of person to use the isp supplied device  Wink
just because your paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

Well - I've just got the basic Netgear router, supplied by Plusnet in the early days of fibre.
It has no stats gathering features.  Cheesy
The homeplugs have some Windows software - which is useless to me.
Since the ports are only 100Mbits (about 10MBytes/sec) a proper speed test is a bit hard.
Internet speeds achieve a maximum of 6 MBytes/sec
Anyway, my ethernet card is being difficult at the moment - so I'm buying another one.  Cry

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

Well for what it's worth my test was based on a 9000 MTU on the NIC and NAS box (via a TL-SG3216 switch) with both ends having full duplex support enabled.
HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

Have you tried iperf?
sudo apt-get install iperf
Then on Computer A:
iperf -s
And on Computer B:
iperf -c <address of Computer A>
On the client machine, you'll see something like this:
iperf -c tim
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to tim, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 16.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 192.168.0.4 port 37248 connected with 192.168.0.5 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  1.04 GBytes    893 Mbits/sec
I've used it in the past to check the giga nics out.
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

That is a much simpler option.
I tried it on Wireless <--> router <--> Wireless  Cry Cry Cry
The server gave results of
Quote
jeremy@debian:~$ iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  4] local 192.168.1.64 port 5001 connected with 192.168.1.8 port 32855
[ ID] Interval      Transfer    Bandwidth
[  4]  0.0-10.3 sec  6.88 MBytes  5.60 Mbits/sec

Which is why you shouldn't use Wireless...

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Testing speed of an ethernet connection

WoW that is fast! NOT!