100Mbit network performance - again

[Andrew P.]

On 7/27/05, Casey Scott <casey at phantombsd.org> wrote:
> > Hello all!
> >
> > I remember being able to reach 11-12Mbytes/s between two Win95
> > workstations with NE2000 $10 NIC's installed, connected via BNC cable.
> > I am now able to reach 11-12Mbytes/s between all kinds of Windows
> > 2000/XP machines with all kinds of cheapest 100Mbit ethernet hardware.
> >
> > But I have never ever exceeded 8-9Mbytes/s between a Windows machine
> > and a FreeBSD box - _never_. Be it Samba, different ftp/http servers,
> > different FreeBSD versions (4.x/5.x), with ipfw enabled or disabled,
> > etc., - the speed always hovers around 7-8Mb/s. I know it's not
> > critical, I know I should've upgraded to Gigabit hardware long ago,
> > but is there something wrong?
> >
> > I tried different linux distros, but they all seem to be even slower.
> > Wazzup?..
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andrew P.
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> 
> 
> Keep in mind that the Windows TCP/IP window buffers are not optimized the
> same way as FBSD or Linux.
> 
> Casey
> 
> 
No doubt about that. Any thoughts about how to make them communicate
more effectively?

Personally, I don't think it's just window buffers. I think the whole
darn TCP/IP stack misconfiguration plus maybe not perfect NIC drivers
are the reason for underperformance. I know that most of the real
"mistakes" must be on the Windows side, but that's not an excuse for
FreeBSD/Linux to not be at least 99%-Windows-networking-compatible.

Andrew P.