# Intel e1000 gigabit , slow on some files

## firaX

Hi, i have a weird problem.

I have 2 Gentoo machines, with almost identical hardware (athlon 64x2, nforce, intel gigabit NIC).

Im using Cat.6 cables. When i transfer from the server machine to the client, i get good speed, 400mbit+, when i SEND files to the server it crawls at 50mbit-90mbit max. But it only seems to be very slow when i transfer video files for example. I transferred a diff large file (ISO) and it went to 200mbit, not fast but at least faster than 50mbit! Both machinese use the 2.6.20-R8 Gentoo kernel and SATA II Samsung drives. 

Anyone know what might  be the cause? I do not have any dmesg errors or anything. 

Thank you,

firaX

PS: I tested again, downloading files from server to client works at 400-500mbits, other way its crawling at 100....i am testing via FTP. I dont understand why it works in one dir, but not in the other :/

PS2: NVM its NOT the network, it seems my /home/fira/Desktop/Bittorrent Downloads/  folder is SLOW, and i dont know why... when i copy files over to  /home/fira/somethingelse it copies over (from hdd) with 3.5mbyte sec only, after that i get 400mbit FTP speed! How can that be? Im using ReiserFS, and it seems to be only files in that folder that are very slow. 

Doesn't matter much, since solution seems to be just moving files out of the folder, but i find it strange nevertheless.

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## jpl888

I tried ReiserFS before and found that strange things like that would happen, you are better off sticking with ext3. At least it is consistent.

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## firaX

i think so too...Any guides/way to reformat my whole system (i partitioned using reiserfs on / /Home /usr /opt etc) without having to reinstall everything? As in make backup, change to EXT3, move backup back to disc, without having to recompile. This is driving me crazy, it might also have to do with the "AMD64 slow during disk access". I get horribly slow speeds in general when i copy over 300mb files within the HDD. Im not even copying them to a different HDD, just within the same HDD to a diff folder... 3-8 mb sec, aftrer that it seems fine. It seems almost as if the files are scattered throughout the HDD and the copy process puts them together.

PS: can also move this to a diff forum, it has nothing to do with my network after all, its 100% a HDD / filesystem issue.

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## jpl888

I don't think so, I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the quickest thing to do would be boot off a live CD, tar the filesystems to another HD or network location, repartition and extract the tar archives back where they belong.

However you might want another backup using some other method like dd in case something goes wrong; I'm not entirely sure how well tar does pristine file system backup.

I was going to say use dump and restore but they only handle ext2/3 AFAIK.

Good luck!

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## St3v3

could it be somthing as simple as fragmented files?

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## jpl888

I would hope that any Linux filesystem doesn't suffer significantly from fragmentation. Fragmenting files is something that Windoze does much better!

If it did turn out to be a fragmentation issue I say that's another good reason to leave reiserfs well alone.

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## papafox

 *jpl888 wrote:*   

> I would hope that any Linux filesystem doesn't suffer significantly from fragmentation. Fragmenting files is something that Windoze does much better!
> 
> If it did turn out to be a fragmentation issue I say that's another good reason to leave reiserfs well alone.

 

The reiserfs has a number of issues, but fragmentation is not one of them.  

All the major filesystems - ext3, reiserfs, XFS and JFS - have put a lot of work into avoiding fragmentation.  Hans has always claimed that reiserfs has less of an issue with fragmentation than ext3.  That said, there are always perverse scenarios which will cause fragmentation.

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## kimmie

Some things that usually cause slowdowns:

Directories with large numbers of files (although then the file size shouldn't matter)

Partitions that are nearly full

Hard drives that are on their way out (use smartmontools to check)But maybe you're copying between two partitions on the same disk? This is often slow, because the head has to move back and forth. Even if you're on the same partition, it can still be slow if the partition is large and filling up. This happens even without fragmentation.

Have you tested write speed without copying? Use something like 

```
dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1m count=300
```

and compare your different folders.

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## darkphader

 *firaX wrote:*   

> Any guides/way to reformat my whole system (i partitioned using reiserfs on / /Home /usr /opt etc) without having to reinstall everything?

 

There is probably something out there. It is, however, pretty straight forward. I just moved /boot//tmp/usr/home/optto a new drive using rsync to copy (in archive mode within filesystems [-ax] - I've used tar in the past as well).

Maybe there's some oddity with your ftp server or client. Try reversing the system roles (install your ftp server on the client) and see what happens.

Chris

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