Randy Clarksean wrote: > I have a number of systems wired locally with switches and hubs. I would > like to be able to do more backups from these systems to a stand alone > backup system with a couple of large hard drives. The issue then becomes > data transfer speeds because a couple of these systems have 100-200 GB of > data stored on them. > > The typical data transfer speeds have been on the order of 2-3 MB/sec when > all network cards are 10/100 MB NICs. 2-3 Megabits/sec (Mbps) is pretty slow. 2-3 Megabytes/sec (MB/s), eight times that, for a single connection, is not out of line. You're never going to get close to 30Mbps, aggregate, on 100baseT with your application. Two easy optimizations you can make are to remove all hubs or replace them with switches, and to configure all NICs to full-duplex. Beyond that we have this thing called "Gigabit Ethernet". -- Michael