The wear and tear on the switch is causing the port to malfunction.
The wear and tear on the switch is causing the port to malfunction.
I planned to move a large number of files (over 100 GB) from an old system to a new file server. The expected speed was around 8 hours or more, which seemed too slow. Initial transfers ran at 10MB/s, raising immediate concerns. It was confirmed the connection was indeed 100Mbit, verified both on the device and the switch. I switched to gigabit speeds as a baseline, which wasn’t anticipated. After turning it off and back on, no improvement occurred. I tried a different Cat6 cable, but results remained unchanged. The original cable was also Cat6. I moved the cable to another port on the switch—now it works at gigabit. Is this port malfunctioning? I don’t have time to test another device on that port. Could this be a known issue with this older Netgear 8 port? It’s been in use for many years, and this is my first encounter with such a problem. Perhaps it’s time to research the cost of 2.5G switches now since I’ve already made some upgrades.
It might stem from a port problem or a firmware concern, but it's unclear without inspecting the device directly. Are only file transfers affected? Do other functions experience delays?
It's running on an older setup mainly for streaming YouTube videos. I still have a lot of old files stored there when I used it more often. A 100Mbit connection shouldn't be an issue for regular use. It's a basic consumer switch with no advanced management features—my only control is adjusting the power supply.
Review the datasheet for the switch; it may include a mix of ports with 1Gb and 100Mb speeds.
In ports there are contacts that can rust (rub them lightly with isopropyl alcohol if necessary), and these contacts may also jump out of their own channel and short with other contacts in the jack. Ensure each of the eight Ethernet contacts is on its separate channel. Check the ports closely, use a needle or similar tool to press each contact inside, confirming it springs back and sits properly. Over time, cables can degrade, and pins might pull out from the Ethernet connectors. I’ve noticed this with solid core patch cables made manually—especially in poorly cooled rooms, after about six to twelve months they begin to fail because the pins no longer make good contact. As a suggestion, if you have many small files, set up an FTP server on one machine; FileZilla takes a few minutes to configure, then create a user and map drives. Once that’s done, launch an FTP client on another computer and transfer files in parallel—each client can handle up to ten transfers at once. If you use FileZilla, adjust settings to binary mode, set max connections to ten, and you’re ready to go.
I was thinking about that oxidation decision. Regarding the FTP, within the network it can become quite slow for smaller files but quicker for larger ones.
I doubt horizontal bending works here but I'll look into dirt and oxidation later. Changing the cable didn't help. I hadn't said before, since it's an HD file this will be the main issue with small files. I mentioned it's a basic home switch.
You can link computers directly, don't you? Use standard cables between the cards and ensure both are gigabit-capable. They'll automatically detect each other and operate smoothly. Assign a distinct IP address to each device (like 192.168.0.100 and 192.168.0.101 with the same subnet mask 255.255.255.0) and you're ready. FTP connections will lag for small files since the client must pick a port, send commands, and then close the session—this creates back-and-forth traffic, making it slower than direct methods. Regular Windows sharing isn't ideal because it's not multithreaded. Handling ten simultaneous connections isn't an issue even with large files; drives can handle over 50MB per second. I successfully achieved 110 MB/s transfers for hours using 1-2 TB drives—old hardware, but still functional. You might want to try tools like Robocopy or alternatives such as TeraCopy: https://www.codesector.com/teracopy. Also worth noting is the old article about file copying speed: it praised a tool that could skip bad sectors and retry reads, which is useful for damaged media.