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This article is from June 24, 2004, and is no longer current.

Under the Desktop: How Fast Is Your Network?

Tweaking performance could be called a job-related hobby for creative professionals. Many of us spend time and hard cash to eke out a bit more speed from our systems and applications. Yet as with so many things in life, the challenge is to think outside the box.
As I’ve pointed out there are many obvious routes to improved performance, such as faster processors and hard drives or even new 64-bit architectures. Let’s also not forget the easiest performance-minded upgrade: making sure your computer is packed to the max with memory.
However, when our focus is on the workstation, it’s easy to overlook some other areas of the performance picture. In this case, we really do want to think outside the box completely and look at our network and Internet connection.
Most of us set up a network and then forget about it, unless we have a network administrator on hand. As long as it’s working we feel everything is fine and dandy. However, this neglect can sap our productivity. Just as with other system components inside the box, your network can use the occasional minding and upgrades.
I note that a similar neglectful process takes place around CRT-based displays. In a long-ago discussion on monitors I pointed out that most high-performance CRT displays only hold their maximum color range for about three years as phosphor coatings degrade. Yet, many content pros believe that everything looks fine, a self-delusional attitude that’s enabled by the gradual decay. I’ve seen monitors with more than eight years in operation sitting in offices. Like a monitor, it’s tough to "see" the changes in your network until it just stops working.
So here are a few tips and easy upgrades to tweak your network performance.
Basement Ethernet
One network performance stealer can be products that are based on older, slower versions of Ethernet.
For example, when we think of Ethernet nowadays, most of us call up the 100BaseT standard, also called Fast Ethernet. It offers speeds up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps). Of course, in reality the performance you will see when moving files on the network is less than the maximum theoretical throughput; it depends on various factors such as the speed of your computer, the network traffic at the time, the condition of the wires in the network, and even the overhead that’s factored into the way the Ethernet protocol sends data across the wire.
No doubt, many readers in the past installed products supporting the older 10BaseT Ethernet standard, which has a maximum theoretical of 10 Mbps, about the same as the Wi-Fi 802.11b wireless standard. It’s easy to forget the limitations of the older 10-Mbps devices when connecting newer products since the older products are mostly compatible with the faster Ethernet (and overlooking the fact than they run more slowly by an order of magnitude).
If you have some older 10BaseT hubs or switches connected here or there, then you could be robbing some of your networked devices and computers of their maximum potential speed. Some devices won’t benefit much, like a laser printer that has a plain Ethernet interface — it can’t run any faster (although a print server might help). But a computer with a Fast Ethernet port that’s stuck behind a ordinary Ethernet hub is being held back for important tasks such as file transfers.


Figure 1: I’ve had some trouble with some RJ-45 Ethernet connectors recently. Like this one here, the connectors were home made, spliced on the scene in my office. My guess is the constant tugging and pulling ruined the cable. The line is bare and the small wires inside the cable are packed into the connector. Many commercial cables are more rugged and provide molded sheaths that hold the connector on the wire and harden the area below the connector.

In addition, the older, slower products were supported by CAT5 cable, also called "twisted pair." The faster 100BaseT devices will operate with the older wiring, however, there’s more electrical goodness built into the later, enhanced CAT5e specification.
If you don’t know what kind of cabling you have, it’s likely to be ordinary CAT5.
Switching to Switches
Now, another easy performance tweak can be found in Ethernet hubs, something many of us still use to connect parts of our networks. They were inexpensive, much less expensive than Ethernet switches a few years ago. What’s the difference?
A hub takes data coming in one port and sends it out all the other ports. However, hubs are very dumb devices and don’t do any useful work on directing data or optimizing traffic.
A switch, on the other hand, can have a number of intelligences built into it. Instead of just passing along each packet of data, switches look at each packet and send it to the proper destination on the network. Some "auto sensing" switches can mix 10- and 100-Mbps connections without letting the slower transfers bog down the faster 100Mbps flow.
Such switches are very inexpensive nowadays, a testament to the economies of mass production. Depending on the number of ports, a 10/100 Ethernet switch costs between $25 and $65. Most have either 5 ports or 8 ports (in my experience, more is better) and come with plastic or metal enclosures.
The hardware geek in me prefers the Spartan, boxy versions with metal enclosures, since heat is always an enemy of performance and metal can supposedly radiate heat more effectively than plastic. However, some may find that a small consideration for such an inexpensive device that’s easily replaceable. The plastic models, admittedly, are more attractive.
Billions and Billions of Packets
While checking up on the status of your 10- and 100-Mbps Ethernet devices, creative pros would do well to consider stepping up to Gigabit Ethernet for their computers. Gigabit Ethernet boasts the same order-of-magnitude improvement over Fast Ethernet, just as the latter did over standard Ethernet.
Today, Gigabit Ethernet comes standard on all workstations, yet most creative sites still stick with the slower Fast Ethernet networking. What’s the holdup?
Besides inertia, the primary inhibitor is cost. Gigabit Ethernet devices have been priced towards the high-end of the market for a long while, although nowadays that space is being fought over by nascent 2-Gbps, 3-Gbps, 4-Gbps and 10-Gbps standards.
However, moving over to Gigabit Ethernet may not be as simple as simple as adding a new switch to your network.Since the advantage of the speed gain will be found when moving large files between workstations and servers, all of the computers on your network would need to be upgraded if they don’t already have a Gigabit Ethernet port. Older ones may not.
Naturally, you’d also need those Gigabit switches. And the CAT5e cable standards supports Gigabit Ethernet, so that may, or may not, be an item on the upgrade list. Pulling new cable can be a pain, and an expense, although the job can be done cheaply if you avoid running the wires behind walls and under the floor and don’t mind the look of external cables running along the baseboard.
While the cost of Gigabit Ethernet devices has dropped substantially over the past year, the prices are all over the map. The other day, I noticed an 8-port switch reduced from $650 to $150. Many of the smaller switches now range in cost from $100 to $300, such as the 5-port Netgear GS105, which I’ve seen priced at $99, and off-brand versions may be in the $70 area.
This range of prices is more than that of 10/100 switches; however, it’s still reasonable. And the cost of PCI host bus adapters also sport a wide range in prices. No-name brands start at $20 and the higher-priced ones spread the cost between $30 to $75.
Thankfully, the Gigabit Ethernet switches are fully compatible with ordinary and Fast Ethernet standards. In fact, you will find them often labeled as 10/100/1000Mbps in catalogs and in online stores.
Internet Connections
The speed of any computer system is only as fast as its slowest bottleneck, and for your network usually that’s the Internet connection.
Broadband is a very complex issue since Internet services providers deliver us asymmetric service: upstream (what you send out to the Internet) and downstream (what comes into your network).
At the current time, cable modem services are taking the lead for performance (and the variety of service plans). A number of services offer speeds between 3 Mbps to 5 Mbps for downloading data and usually around 384 Kbps for uploading data.
This performance level is twice that of DSL connections, which top out at 1.5 Mbps for downstream. Until recently, most basic DSL services guaranteed 128 Kbps uploads and that was a competitive problem.
However, Verizon earlier this month raised its basic upload speed to 384 Kbps ($29.95 per month when part of a local- and long-distance calling package or $34.95 monthly when bought as a stand-alone DSL service; and more for business plans). In my case, I still have a different long distance phone provider, so my DSL service is still in the 1.5Mbps/128Kbps range.
The fast download speeds are attractive, especially when receiving large files from clients. My neighbor, who has a Comcast cable connection reported a download speed of 2.4 Mbps the other day, a very solid rate when compared with my 1.2-Mbps connection. However, he admitted that this speed was tested very late in the evening, when performance of cable Internet will be at its best.
But calculating a performance or technological advantage between the cable and DSL architectures is difficult due to their different architectures.
DSL provides a dedicated bandwidth to its customers, which can be more reliable than cable technology, which delivers shared bandwidth to all the customers in the local area. The actual performance of a cable modem connection can depend on how many customers are located in your neighborhood and how many are using Internet services at a particular time — this was the grist of advertisements from DSL companies. Of course, cable companies keep expanding their infrastructure to mitigate these bandwidth problems over time.
Looking at the cable modem performance reported by my neighbor over the past six months, I see that while my downstream performance holds steady throughout the day at 1.2 Mbps, it’s always slower than his cable connection and sometimes much slower. However, his upstream performance can suffer, often coming down to my 130-Kbps range. But if I upgrade my service, I know that I would have better, more reliable upstream performance than him.
For me the Internet performance question is a tossup. My guess here is that most of us care more about download speed, since often we’re waiting for something big from our clients. I’m considering the change.
At the same time, uploads are also vital to your business, perhaps more so, since your digital designs and creativity are only valuable when they are off your computer and with your customer.
The Talmud says: ""Neither a happy dream nor a bad one is entirely fulfilled." Certainly, that’s the case when determining network performance. Still, every little tweak can help.
Read more by David Morgenstern

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