Windows 10: Local network: uploads way slower than downloads on local network

Update: see iperf tests below. Issue appears to be OS-related. No speed problems on Linux boxes, Windows causes upload slowdown.

Issue: using local gigabit network uploads peak at 7-10MB/s while downloads fully saturate the link at 110MB/s. This happens whether connected to a switch or with computers connected directly, as well as with a NAS. Both NICs confirmed to connect at gigabit speeds. I've updated NIC drivers to the latest. I've tried enabling and disabling Large Send Offload. Netbios is enabled.

I've tested laptop-switch-desktop, laptop-switch-NAS, desktop-switch-NAS, desktop-laptop, desktop-NAS and laptop-NAS connections using various cables and the end result is the same - downloads are at full 1000Mbps speed and uploads barely reach 100Mbps.

Any suggestions where to start looking here as wiring and NICs seem to have been eliminated as culprits?
Code: C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3.exe -c 192.168.2.2 Connecting to host 192.168.2.2, port 5201 [ 4] local 127.0.0.1 port 51047 connected to 192.168.2.2 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 5.25 MBytes 44.0 Mbits/sec [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 5.00 MBytes 41.8 Mbits/sec [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 4.50 MBytes 37.7 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 4.50 MBytes 37.7 Mbits/sec [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 4.50 MBytes 37.7 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 43.8 MBytes 36.7 Mbits/sec sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 42.5 MBytes 35.6 Mbits/sec receiver iperf Done. C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3.exe -c 192.168.2.2 -R Connecting to host 192.168.2.2, port 5201 Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.2.2 is sending [ 4] local 127.0.0.1 port 51051 connected to 192.168.2.2 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 80.6 MBytes 676 Mbits/sec [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 80.7 MBytes 677 Mbits/sec [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 81.4 MBytes 683 Mbits/sec [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 81.1 MBytes 680 Mbits/sec [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 80.4 MBytes 675 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 82.2 MBytes 690 Mbits/sec [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 81.9 MBytes 687 Mbits/sec [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 82.0 MBytes 688 Mbits/sec [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 81.8 MBytes 686 Mbits/sec [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 81.7 MBytes 685 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 818 MBytes 686 Mbits/sec sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 816 MBytes 685 Mbits/sec receiver iperf Done. C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>[/quote]

:)

 

Windows 10 Professional System Image Restore From Network Attached Storage

I don't use a network location to store system images. The speed of a backup or recovery is much slower than a local external or internal drive.

The image needs to be on the root of a drive for local storage. The network location does not have that requirement.

The main problem I see is connecting to the NAS when booting to the recovery media. Of course you can test that and see if the system finds the image. You will probably need the network path and possibly password for the NAS. Wireless may not have a driver
but Ethernet should work outside of Windows.

 

Local Network

I have two computers running Windows 10 and on both computers they are both visible in Explorer/Network.

however, when trying to access the one computer from the other, a security window comes up asking me for my password and stating that the username and password are incorrect. (see below) No matter what I do I cannot get access.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

 

Hi there

Not sure if the router has something to do with it - especially if it's an el-cheapo one from a typical ISP. There might be some fiddly parameters and also full duplex mode should be used.

Even though you are on a LOCAL LAN the whole kybosh still has to pass through the router -- that's the next place where I'd start looking for problems.

If you've directly connected the computers - via a "reversing LAN cable" and you aren't getting full speeds there's got to be something in the parameters of the NIC's.

I suspect that since until recently it was hard to get anything like 100Mb/s on UPLOAD this issue was never really dealt with - download speeds of nearly 1Gb/s have been available for ages now so the hardware is well fit for purpose.

Try also say using an FTP client l to transfer files rather than File explorer and see if that makes any difference.

Filezilla (it's free and has both a client and a server version).

FileZilla - The free FTP solution

Another issue could be the speed and buffer size of the HDD's themselves -- WRITE might be really slow which will kill your upload speed -- READS are often very much faster. If you've got an SSD connect say to your NAS via SATA-->USB3 adapter cable and copy a say 4GB file to the SSD -- now try your upload from the SSD and see what speed you get to the remote computer - first over direct LAN cable and then via the router. Ideally you should use an SSD on each end to test of course -- note that USB3 connection is faster than the probable speed of the disk anyway so still a good test.

Over 90% of poor computer performance I've dealt with over the last few years has been HIDEOUSLY SLOW HDD's - Writes do take much longer than READS and if the cache is small you can't buffer a decent chunk to get a sustained fast throughput.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Hey,

I wish I could blame the router, but it's not even in the play. Everything is connected using GBe switch and even when I took that out of the equation, everything still stayed the same. FTP is the same - fast download and slow upload.

I haven't tested the desktop HDD (it's a Seagate SHDD), but other drives in play are WD Red Pros. I ran hdparm on those and got consistent 3000+ MB cached writes and 200+ buffered writes. They should work fine. Also mapped anubbad sectors (none), SMART checks out. I think I can rule the drives out at this point.

I'm leaning towards either NIC or Windows config since both computers exhibit the same issue (I took NAS out of the play for now). While I don't have any Cat6 patch cables, I'm pretty sure I should be able to sustain gigabit speeds over a 3ft Cat5e cable...

I've disabled the usual suspects (green Ethernet, LOS). Not sure where to start looking at this point.

 

Duplex maybe? default appears to be Auto Negotiate, I have mine all set at 1.0 Gbps Full Duplex.

 

Nope, not it. All is set to 1000FD.

 

Hi there

I'm sure it's something with the I/O caching which means Windows somewhere.

On Download there's only presumably 1 WRITE since the download is already in the process of being done and you probably are looking at the speed the Target computer is working at

On Upload - the destination computer has to wait for READ from the remote machine, buffer the data into the Lan transfer mechanism - presumably the Nics, then enable a WRITE on the remote computer and empty the data from the Nic.

I'm not sure how this actually works and all the parameters involved but there's definitely MORE operations needed on UPLOAD than DOWNLOAD.

Can you try the same thing with a LINUX OS - that will rule out Windows and point to the Nics.

There's plenty of decent Live distros you can boot straight from USB without touching any of your HDD's.

Filezilla for FTP works just fine on Linux if you want an FTP client (GUI version) if you don't want to try using command mode (console).

You should try though to have say two ext4 files rather than a mix of NTFS and Linux as although Linux can read / write NTFS there;s an additional overhead - although in the scheme of what you are testing it might be ignorable.

Cheers
jimbo

 

I'm about to try live booting Mint Linux but here's what I have for now... I'm blaming Windows networking more and more now.


This is from Win laptop to Win desktop direct connection -
Code: C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3.exe -s ----------------------------------------------------------- Server listening on 5201 ----------------------------------------------------------- Accepted connection from 192.168.3.4, port 54193 [ 5] local 192.168.3.3 port 5201 connected to 192.168.3.4 port 54195 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.00-1.01 sec 5.03 MBytes 41.9 Mbits/sec [ 5] 1.01-2.00 sec 4.78 MBytes 40.4 Mbits/sec [ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 5.51 MBytes 46.2 Mbits/sec [ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 6.47 MBytes 54.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 5.75 MBytes 48.2 Mbits/sec [ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 6.16 MBytes 51.7 Mbits/sec [ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 6.34 MBytes 53.2 Mbits/sec [ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 7.55 MBytes 63.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 5.52 MBytes 46.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 6.23 MBytes 52.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 10.00-10.05 sec 263 KBytes 46.7 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.00-10.05 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 5] 0.00-10.05 sec 59.6 MBytes 49.8 Mbits/sec receiver ----------------------------------------------------------- Server listening on 5201[/quote]
Here are the results with server running on desktop, from NAS (Linux) -

Code: C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3.exe -s ----------------------------------------------------------- Server listening on 5201 ----------------------------------------------------------- Accepted connection from 192.168.2.2, port 56845 [ 5] local 192.168.2.145 port 5201 connected to 192.168.2.2 port 56846 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 108 MBytes 904 Mbits/sec [ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 937 Mbits/sec [ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec [ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec [ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec [ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec [ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec [ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec [ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec [ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec [ 5] 10.00-10.04 sec 4.14 MBytes 943 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.00-10.04 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 5] 0.00-10.04 sec 1.09 GBytes 937 Mbits/sec receiver ----------------------------------------------------------- Server listening on 5201 -----------------------------------------------------------[/quote]

Server running on NAS (Linux), testing from desktop (Windows) -

Code: C:\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3.exe -c 192.168.2.2 Connecting to host 192.168.2.2, port 5201 [ 4] local 127.0.0.1 port 51047 connected to 192.168.2.2 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-1.01 sec 4.75 MBytes 39.3 Mbits/sec [ 4] 1.01-2.01 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 2.01-3.01 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 3.01-4.01 sec 4.50 MBytes 37.8 Mbits/sec [ 4] 4.01-5.00 sec 5.00 MBytes 42.4 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-6.01 sec 5.00 MBytes 41.5 Mbits/sec [ 4] 6.01-7.01 sec 4.00 MBytes 33.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 7.01-8.01 sec 5.00 MBytes 42.0 Mbits/sec [ 4] 8.01-9.01 sec 3.50 MBytes 29.4 Mbits/sec [ 4] 9.01-10.01 sec 4.50 MBytes 37.8 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-10.01 sec 44.2 MBytes 37.1 Mbits/sec sender [ 4] 0.00-10.01 sec 43.4 MBytes 36.4 Mbits/sec receiver[/quote]

 

This is definitely a Windows issue. Here are the results from live booting Linux Mint with server running on a Windows laptop -

Code: mint@mint ~/Desktop/Qfinder $ iperf3 -c 192.168.2.150 Connecting to host 192.168.2.150, port 5201 [ 4] local 192.168.2.213 port 47694 connected to 192.168.2.150 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 105 MBytes 878 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 939 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 936 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 939 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 111 MBytes 935 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 939 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 111 MBytes 927 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 110 MBytes 927 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.06 GBytes 911 Mbits/sec 0 sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.06 GBytes 910 Mbits/sec receiver[/quote] Running test in reverse, Windows laptop shows average of 50mbps.

 

Wonder if this is related to the bandwidth throttling issue in Vista and Win7?
Found it, anything here help SG ::

specifically this maybe.

 

YES! Changed it to ffffffff and now I'm getting nice and consistent 500mbps uploads to a slow laptop! THANK YOU!

 

Hi there

@herzzreh

thanks for interesting discussion. Glad its working.

@clam1952 -- good tip --repped you.

I've repped clam1952 - --perhaps you should too

I got it sort of right by eliminating every other cause - including testing an other OS (Linux) so fault after all other stuff had been eliminated was Windows itself

That's where I couldn't do any more - I don't know much about all these Windows settings so thanks to Clam1952 again


Windows networking for me though is still a BIG one of these : !!!!






Cheers
jimbo

 

I'm sad to say that the issue is back. Whatever it is, it's definitely Windows shenanigans as Linux live boot saturates the link but Win continues to peak at ~50Mbps.

 

Hi there

@herzzreh

mine's still working -- but looking at my "Doggy Friend above" I'd definitely not use Windows clients for transferring large files over a Network -- if it's possible get yourself a small self powered USB 3 device and use back the same method we used back in my old IBM mainframe days when we had large tape reels -- this method we called "FOOTNET" --nothing to do with Football (US or European versions) but we simply unloaded a tape from Machine A walked it over to machine B (hence FOOTNET !) and mounted it physically on Machine B.

Just copy file(s) to your USB3 HDD from the server and then attach the HDD to the local machine. Even better if it's an SSD - then use SATA-->USB3 connector.

For typical size files using the server over the network should be fine -- but I know it feels silly when your performance is about 15% of what you SHOULD be getting.

Cheers
jimbo