Why Is My 1 Gb Really 100mb?
- Tony Fortunato
- Apr 7
- 1 min read
I’ve seen various themes on the same scenario multiple times;
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Client upgrades network components and sees no improvement, or gets worse performance and has no idea why.
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Could be a new access point, new switch, router, firewall, internet package or client computer
There are multiple issues with this scenario that I can highlight with a few questions
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Do you know what the performance was before?
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â How did you test?
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Did you monitor?
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â How long did you test for?
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Was there any business or social events that would impact performance like tax season for an accounting department or Christmas season for a department store?
Let take a simple scenario where the analyst upgraded the internet bandwidth from 100 Mb/s to 1 Gb/s. He performed a simple speedtest from speedtest.net before and after the upgrade, from the same computer, at the same time, multiple times.
Before the upgrade, the analyst recorded an average of 93 Mb/s upload and download. After the upgrade the numbers were identical. He immediately checked his computer nic speed, which was 1 Gb/FD and same for his switch port.
Spoiler alert: in this case there was a cable between the firewall and switch that was running at 100 Mbs since the cable was ‘marginal’ at best.
I replicated this scenario in my lab and created this video for your enjoyment and entertainment.
Enjoy
I used a Netally LinkRunner in this video. Since we don't sell products, you can go to NetAlly's website for more information
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