Windows shares limit maximum speed at 50MB/s
Windows shares limit maximum speed at 50MB/s
Hey, I just acquired a CAT5E and a CAT6 cable, both capable of Gigabit speeds. I connected them between my desktop and laptop, and everything functioned properly with IP settings. However, when moving files between the devices, the performance drops significantly—far below the expected 100MB/s based on the theoretical limits. The CAT5E can reach up to 125MB/s, so I anticipate around 100MB/s should be realistic. While transferring large files slows things down, sending an ISO file shouldn’t cause such a drop. Could there be an issue with my connection or wiring? The link speed appears to be Gigabit, as shown in the screenshot (tested with CAT5E). Also, I noticed a difference in performance between CAT5E and CAT6 cables. CAT5E supports Gigabit, while CAT6 supports 10Gbps. Since my hardware only handles Gigabit, I expected speeds to remain consistent regardless of cable type. This is the speed I’m seeing with CAT6 (which is higher). My main questions: Is there a bottleneck in my setup? Or is this just normal behavior? Also, what leads to the speed variation between these cable types? Thanks.
There's also a difference between cheap CAT5e and good CAT5e, mainly CCA (copper coated aluminum wire) and full copper wire. The former being crap in general sometimes barely reaching gigabit speeds. Also make sure to disable the Wi-Fi connection on your laptop to make sure it's 100% going over the wire. By the way, many laptop hard drives barely ever do close to 100MB/s because they're cheap junk. Test this to and from SSD to eliminate the storage bottleneck.
I don't believe the problem lies with a low-quality cable, assuming it's intact. My concern is more about a slow hard drive or another factor affecting the connection.
This likely explains the speed variation. The CAT5E cable I found appears to be the issue—it was probably included with a router and is considered inexpensive. On the other hand, the CAT6 cable my friend gave me seems higher quality, though it lacks clear labeling like "CAT6." Business equipment usually comes with better standards. Since my computer doesn’t support Wi-Fi, that’s probably the main limitation. I don’t have any other devices with Gigabit speeds, but the difference is around 20MB/s. That’s significant for me, especially since I often work with 10MB/s connections. I’m not sure insulation alone could cause such a gap. I do have an external hard drive; when transferring files, my laptop with an SSD reaches up to 120MB/s, but on this particular machine it drops to about 70-75MB/s. This aligns with the speeds I see over Ethernet. Thank you all for your help—it really helps clarify things as I prepare to set up a faster network for my home.