small lan throughput test

Question

My house is Cat6 cabled for ethernet. I want to do some speed measuring.

Background:

Below the stairs is a small server room for the router, DSL modem, a EEE-Box (ubuntu) and a LaCie-Nas used for Backups (TimeMachine).
There are Linux (3), OS X (3), and Windows XP (1) machines on the lan

How would you go about testing LAN throughput in such an environment?

Do I test the endpoints one by one, by lugging a laptop around
can it be done at (or near) the router.
is there a 'best practice' approach

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 28 '10 at 09:13

2

You could use a tool such as vnstat to graph your bandwidth. Once vnstat is running, launch a big copy of a file from a computer to another, using dd for example (try to really limit the CPU usage so it doesn't get to be the limiting factor). If your HDD is fast enough (so the network is the limiting factor), it should give you a good idea of your bandwidth.

answered Aug 28 '10 at 09:13

raphink

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Is there something similar for a Windows environment? – emtunc Dec 14 '10 at 14:51

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 14 '10 at 14:43

2

You can try iperf, it works as a client and server so you need to install it on two computers, here's how you use it

run on Server

iperf -s

run on client

iperf -c <ip of server>

hope that helps, RayQuang

answered Dec 14 '10 at 14:43

RayQuang

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 28 '10 at 08:59

Best practice is to have the cables certified from the person installing it. YOu pretty much need special equipment for doing so - then you get exact measurementy that your cabling adheres to a specific standard. SHould have bee done at install time and you should have gotten the measurement sips that the tester prints out.

small lan throughput test

3 Answers3