video file transfers using firewire network

williamc wrote on 1/28/2005, 7:14 AM

I have to move around a lot of big video files (13 GB per hour). I heard that firewire networking can achieve speeds of 400 megabits per second, so I'm trying it. Because I'm running Win2000 server on each of my video encoding PCs, I installed the FireNet utility (from UniBrain).

Testing, I can ping between 2 machines, and access the machines across the firewire using \\computername. I can see the machines via Network Neighborhood. For transfer speed testing, I disconnected the 2 machines from my Ethernet LAN and tried copying a 13 GB file across the firewire segment. It takes 55 mins.

That does not compare favorably with transfer via Ethernet, which takes only 30 mins. Can anyone tell me why the performance is so poor?

Cheers.

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/28/2005, 7:42 AM

Why not simply upgrade your ethernet to a Gigabit net? 10/100/1000 NIC cards are not that expensive (if it's a fairly new PC it may already support 1GB speeds - which might explain your speed differences comparing to firewire, since it would be roughly twice as fast and that's about what you're seeing).

Likewise 10/100/1000 Switches aren't that bad in price either (though it you only have 2 machines you may just be able to hook them up directly).