NASLite Network Attached Storage

This is perhaps more related to the original poster's gigabit experience rather than NASLite itself, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Whilst beta testing Microsoft's Windows Home Server, which amongst other things, automatically backs up all the client computers every night, I decided I wanted to use gigabit to ensure the backups complete in the six hour window available.

The NIC I originally started using was a Compaq branded SMC based 10/100 card, that shipped with the Deskpro that I'm using for the WHS beta and max throughput was around 60mb/s - I went out and picked up a cheap Nexxt gigabit card that turned out to be based on the Realtek RTL-8169 chipset, which is the same chipset used by the original poster.

With no other changes, ie with the WHS connected to the same ethernet cable and the same 10/100 port on my network switch, throughput remains around 60mb/s - but - transferring the cable to a gigabit switch port, the transfer rate plummets to 24mb/s. I then swapped the Realtek based card for an Intel Pro/1000MT which gave me 55mb/s on a 10/100 port and a disappointing 90mb/s on gigabit.

Based on previous experience, I know that this network is good for 98mb/s throughput on a 10/100 link and at least 190mp/s on gigabit - I say at least 190mb/s, because that is the highest speed recorded during a file transfer, which may (or may not) have been limited by the disk subsystems at the two ends - network throughput tests (as against file transfers) have topped out around 440mb/s - by the way - these figures are from the switch's SNMP management utilities, which show no errors, suggesting that the low throughput of the Realtek based card is not due to network configuration issues.

Changing nothing other than the card and it's drivers, and the port on the switch, you can see the dramatic drop in performance when the Realtek based card is used on gigabit ethernet - in my case with Windows, in the case of the original poster. NASLite (linux) - is this a chipset related issue?

Edit - the tests above were all done with Microsoft's drivers - switching to the drivers supplied on the diskette with the Nexxt card gave me 95mb/s throughput, which just might be the limit on that particular box - it's an older PIII system - so it looks like this chipset might need drivers that are optimised for it to deliver gigabit speeds.