Quadruple Your Network Speed for $100 with SMB 3.0 Multichannel!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,589 words · ~7 min read
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you've seen all the expensive Network crap that we're using around here to
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break the 1 gbit network transfer speed barrier that we've been stuck with for
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the last decade well today is not about
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that it's about hitting your network at home with a much needed shot of
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adrenaline on the
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cheap the simitar RGB from corser features 17 programmable buttons a
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12,000 DPI Optical sensor and a shape design for comfort in MOBA and MMO games
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check out the link in the video description to learn more okay so the first time I tried to
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do something like this was way back in the NC Tech tip days with this video
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here I had the right idea use a
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relatively inexpensive multi-port network card with multiple cables
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attached to it to achieve faster transfer speeds than what would be
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possible with a single port and a single cable but the software implementation
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wasn't as mature yet and the only scenario where I saw a real benefit was
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with multiple clients hitting a single server connected in that way all at once
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today we're going to actually do what I theorized would be freaking awesome all
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those years ago and demonstrate a point-to-point transfer speed of more
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than 1 gabit with about $100 worth of Hardware off of eBay assuming that
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you've already got a couple of decent Windows 10 PCS so it starts with the
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hardware shopping first you'll need a couple of quad Port network interface
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cards or NYX I ended up with a couple of HP branded Intel Pro 1000 PT cards that
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I snagged for about $30 each next you'll need a network switch that can actually
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handle all of those plugs so the four port one built into your home router or
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even a standalone eight Port desktop switch won't cut it if you want to plug
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in anything else the good news is that for this
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functionality you don't need a fancy Smart Switch so any cheap 16 or 24 Port
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will do we used a dlink one that Johnny the network guy who helped us with this
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project had lying around the last thing that you're going to need is 8 Ethernet
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cables but if that comes as a surprise to you you probably shouldn't be taking
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on any networking projects so our initial testing actually didn't go very
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well we threw the two Cheapo quad Network Cards into my usual test bench
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and my up Ed personal rig disabled Windows Firewall plugged in all the
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Ethernet cables without actually worrying about plugging into the main
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router for internet and then we wanted to see what would happen the answer was
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nothing um they transferred at exactly
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gigabit speeds um a disheartening result
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given that Johnny had assured me that he had gotten it to work on his test
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machines with no hassle whatsoever so we put new fresh Windows
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10 installs on each and NADA same thing
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what the heck time to bring up the big guns so Johnny ran home and got his
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custom z170 ASRock board with an Intel Core i5 Skylake chip in it and a random
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Lenovo pre-built with a core I 34130 dual core we put his Nicks into those a
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couple of Intel i340 t4s that are a bit
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more expensive than the ones I bought but still quite affordable and voila
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transfer speeds in excess of 1 gbit not
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particularly impressive still and frequently dipping below gigabit even
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but the important thing that we're looking for here is activity on all four
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interfaces and we got it from there
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though it was time to keep tuning we wanted to eliminate the mechanical hard
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drive in the Lenovo machine as a bottleneck so we threw a secondary SSD
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in there big Improvement but still not
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enough we needed to do more so we tore apart Johnny's Lenovo machine and put in
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16 gigs of RAM so we could make a RAM disc and still not the results we needed
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I mean this should have been capable of over 400 megabytes per second so we
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started trying a lot of other random
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stuff we wanted to boot the Lenovo hard drive off of my8 core machine we tried
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installing fresh with Johnny's Windows 10 ISO to see if maybe that was the
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issue we were having when before when I was trying to do it and in either of
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those situations the multi-channel transfers that we wanted didn't work at
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all all both of us were tearing our hair out at this point getting SMB
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multichannel to work seems to be as much about luck as anything else and certain
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combinations Hardware with certain Windows installs were working while
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others weren't so in the end we did
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manage to get Johnny's boot SSD from his Skylink personal rig to run on my x99
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test bench but we were stuck with that Lenovo box with the core I3 the good
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news is that that change and we actually
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switched back to my cheap network cards at this point because the 340s didn't
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seem to be making a difference anyway resulted in a much faster and more
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consistent transfer just still not what it should be capable of and then we had
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the Eureka moment SMB multi- Channel
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leverages multiple CPU threads for
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faster file transfers so I tried
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adjusting the number of cores in my extreme Edition machine down to two to
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see if that would slow things down it actually didn't but it did help me
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observe the very high CPU usage on that
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machine so the answer then was actually
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the core I3 the equivalent I had tried to create on the other side so we turned
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the extreme Edition back up to four cores eight threads to be similar to
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what an Enthusiast with the core i7 would have then we swapped out the core
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I3 and the Lenovo machine with a 4 790k and
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boom just like that it worked the proof
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is in the pudding SMB multi channel for under $100 can improve your network
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transfer speeds and this is great for editing HD or 4K video files over a NZ
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uh for improving the ability of a single file server to serve multiple clients or
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even just making impatient people who hate waiting for access to network
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resources happier and the more CPU
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threads you have with a core i7 being ideal on both sides of the transfer the
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faster it can go I do wish at this point
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in the video that I could explain some of the inconsistencies that I observed
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in getting SMB multi channel to work at all but maybe that's an investigation
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for another day for now that's the hardware you need and that's the results
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that you can achieve which leads us pretty well into our sponsor honor who
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has us showing off the 5x smartphone today there's a few things about it that
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are notable first of which is the metal body the design for which was inspired
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by the famous gugenheim Museum in Spain so the phone is actually made with four
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Metal Finishing processes making the diamond polished aircraft aluminum body
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actually surprisingly strong they've got a ton of
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color options Sunset gold dark gray and Daybreak silver as well as a fingerprint
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sensor built into the back that actually works surprisingly quickly and can be
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tapped in order to take photos or selfies you can actually set up
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different fingers middle pointer and Pinky as shortcuts to open different
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apps like maybe you could use your pinky to open up your contacts your middle to
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you know open up contacts you don't like and your index to open up Instagram or
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whatever else it's powered by Android 5.1 lollipop with 16 gigs of internal
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memory and 2 gigs of RAM as well as a Qualcomm 64-bit octacore processor in
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order to deliver actually a surprisingly smooth experience given the price point
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but we'll get to that after it's got a 5 1/2 in 1080P display as well as a 13
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megapixel rear camera and multiple card
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slots in order for you to add additional storage as well as two SIM
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cards which leads us again to the price it comes in at
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$199 that is just the normal everyday price and you can check that out at the
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link in the video description so thanks for watching guys
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that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the
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top right corner to check out our followup to the seven Gamers 1 CPU video
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where we all actually game on it very cool stuff