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lexu
Asked: 2010-08-29 00:50:16 +0800 CST

small lan throughput test

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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
bandwidth benchmark multi-platform

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    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.

    • 2

  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

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  3. 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.

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