Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express network adapter. Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express network adapter Based on materials from the Telecom Transport company

Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express network adapter. Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express network adapter Based on materials from the Telecom Transport company

What is the reason?

What is the reason?

Name

Type

Segment length

Advantages

1000Base-SX

Optical fiber

550m

Multimode fiber (50, 62.5 µm)

1000Base-LX

Optical fiber

5000m

Singlemode (10 µm) or multimode (50, 62.5 µm) fiber

1000Base-CX

2 shielded twisted pairs

25m

Shielded twisted pair

1000Base-T

4 unshielded twisted pairs

100m

Standard Category 5 Twisted Pair

I was in no hurry to translate mine home network from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps, which is quite strange for me since I transfer a large number of files over the network. However, when I spend money on a computer or infrastructure upgrade, I believe I should get an immediate performance boost in the apps and games I run. Many users like to treat themselves with a new video card, central processor and some gadget. However, for some reason network hardware does not attract such enthusiasm. Indeed, it is difficult to invest the money you earn in network infrastructure instead of another technological birthday gift.

However, the requirements for bandwidth mine are very high, and at one point I realized that the 100 Mbit/s infrastructure was no longer enough. All my home computers already have integrated 1 Gbps adapters (on their motherboards), so I decided to take the price list of the nearest computer company and see what I would need to transfer the entire network infrastructure at 1 Gbit/s.

No, a home gigabit network is not that complicated at all.

I bought and installed all the equipment. I remember that it used to take about a minute and a half to copy a large file over a 100 Mbps network. After an upgrade to 1 Gbit/s, the same file began to be copied in 40 seconds. The performance increase was pleasantly pleasing, but still I did not get the tenfold improvement that could be expected from comparing the throughput of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps of the old and new networks.

What is the reason?

For a gigabit network, all parts must support 1 Gbps. For example, if you have Gigabit network cards and associated cables installed, but the hub/switch only supports 100 Mbps, then the entire network will operate at 100 Mbps.

The first requirement is a network controller. It is best if each computer on the network is equipped with a gigabit network adapter (separate or integrated on the motherboard). This requirement is the easiest to satisfy, since most motherboard manufacturers have been integrating gigabit network controllers for the last couple of years.

The second requirement is that the network card must also support 1 Gbit/s. There is a common misconception that gigabit networks require Cat 5e cable, but in fact even old Cat 5 cable supports 1 Gbps. However, Cat 5e cables have best characteristics, so they will be a more optimal solution for gigabit networks, especially if the cables are of decent length. However, Cat 5e cables are still the cheapest today, since old standard Cat 5 is already obsolete. Newer and more expensive Cat 6 cables offer even better performance for gigabit networks. We'll compare the performance of Cat 5e vs Cat 6 cables later in our article.

The third and probably most expensive component in a gigabit network is the 1 Gbps hub/switch. Of course, it is better to use a switch (perhaps paired with a router), since a hub or hub is not the most intelligent device, simply broadcasting all network data on all available ports, which leads to a large number of collisions and slows down network performance. If you need high performance, then you can’t do without a gigabit switch, since it redirects network data only to the required port, which effectively increases the network speed compared to a hub. A router usually contains a built-in switch (with multiple LAN ports) and also allows you to connect your home network to the Internet. Most home users understand the benefits of a router, so a gigabit router is a very attractive option.

How fast should gigabit be? If you hear the prefix "giga", you probably mean 1000 megabytes, while a gigabit network should provide 1000 megabytes per second. If you think so, then you are not alone. But, alas, in reality everything is different.

What is gigabit? This is 1000 megabits, not 1000 megabytes. There are 8 bits in one byte, so let's just do the math: 1,000,000,000 bits divided by 8 bits = 125,000,000 bytes. There are about a million bytes in a megabyte, so a gigabit network should provide a theoretical maximum data transfer rate of about 125 MB/s.

Sure, 125 MB/s doesn't sound as impressive as gigabit, but think about it: a network at that speed should theoretically transfer a gigabyte of data in just eight seconds. And a 10 GB archive should be transferred in just a minute and 20 seconds. The speed is incredible: just remember how long it took to transfer a gigabyte of data before USB sticks became as fast as they are today.

Our expectations were high, so we decided to transfer the file over a gigabit network and enjoy speeds close to 125 MB/s. We don't have any specialized fancy hardware: a simple home network with some old but decent technology.

Copying a 4.3 GB file from one home computer on the other it ran at an average speed of 35.8 MB/s (we ran the test five times). This is only 30% of the theoretical ceiling of a gigabit network of 125 MB/s.

What are the causes of the problem?

Selecting components for installing a gigabit network is quite simple, but getting the network to work maximum speed much more difficult. The factors that can cause a network to slow down are numerous, but as we've discovered, it all comes down to how fast hard disks capable of transmitting data to the network controller.

The first limitation that needs to be taken into account is the interface of the gigabit network controller with the system. If your controller is connected via the old PCI bus, then the amount of data it can theoretically transfer is 133 MB/s. For Gigabit Ethernet's 125 MB/s throughput this seems sufficient, but remember that the throughput PCI buses distributed throughout the system. Each additional PCI card and many system components will use the same bandwidth, reducing the resources available to the network card. For controllers with a new interface PCI Express(PCIe) there are no such problems, since each PCIe lane provides at least 250 MB/s of bandwidth, and exclusively for the device.

The next important factor that affects network speed is cables. Many experts point out that in the case of laying network cables near power cables that are sources of interference, low speeds guaranteed. Long cable lengths are also problematic, as Cat 5e copper cables are certified to a maximum length of 100 meters.

Some experts recommend running cables to the new Cat 6 standard instead of Cat 5e. Often such recommendations are difficult to justify, but we will try to test the effect of cable category on a small gigabit home network.

Let's not forget about the operating system. Of course, this system is rarely used in a gigabit environment, but it is worth mentioning that Windows 98 SE (and older operating systems) will not be able to take advantage of gigabit Ethernet, since the TCP/IP stack of this operating system is barely able to load a 100-Mbps connection in to the fullest. Windows 2000 and above latest versions Windows will already work, although in older ones operating systems You'll have to do some tweaking to make sure they make the most of the network. We will use a 32-bit OS Windows Vista for our tests, and while Vista doesn't have the best reputation for some tasks, it supports gigabit networking from the start.

Now let's move on to hard drives. Even the older IDE interface with the ATA/133 specification should be sufficient to support a theoretical file transfer speed of 133 MB/s, and the newer SATA specification fits the bill as it provides at least 1.5 Gb/s (150 MB) of throughput. /With). However, while cables and controllers can handle data transfer at such speeds, the hard drives themselves cannot.

Let's take for example a typical modern 500 GB hard drive, which should provide a constant throughput of about 65 MB/s. At the beginning of the plates (outer tracks) the speed may be higher, but as you move to the inner tracks the throughput drops. Data on internal tracks is read slower, at about 45 MB/s.

We thought we had covered all possible bottlenecks. What was left to do? We needed to run some tests and see if we could get the network performance up to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s.

Test configuration

Test systems	Server system	Client system
CPU	Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (Conroe), 2.66 GHz, FSB-1333, 4 MB cache	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Kentsfield), 2.7 GHz, FSB-1200, 8 MB cache
Motherboard	ASUS P5K, Intel P35, BIOS 0902	MSI P7N SLI Platinum, Nvidia nForce 750i, BIOS A2
Net	Built-in Abit Gigabit LAN controller	Integrated nForce 750i Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Memory	Wintec Ampo PC2-6400, 2x 2048 MB, DDR2-667, CL 5-5-5-15 at 1.8 V	A-Data EXTREME DDR2 800+, 2x 2048 MB, DDR2-800, CL 5-5-5-18 at 1.8 V
Video cards	ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight, 1 GB GDDR3-2200, 738 MHz GPU, 1836 MHz shader unit	MSI GTX260 Lightning, 1792 MB GDDR3-1998, 590 MHz GPU, 1296 MHz shader unit
Hard drive 1	Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS, 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA 300
Hard drive 2	2x Hitachi Deskstar 0A-38016 in RAID 1, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA 300	Western Digital Caviar WD50 00AAJS-00YFA, 500 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 MB cache, SATA 300
power unit	Aerocool Zerodba 620w, 620 W, ATX12V 2.02	Ultra HE1000X, ATX 2.2, 1000 W
Network switch	D-Link DGS-1008D, 8-Port 10/100/1000 Unmanaged Gigabit Desktop Switch
Software and drivers
OS	Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit 6.0.6001, SP1
DirectX version	DirectX 10
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce 185.85

Tests and settings

Tests and settings
Nodesoft Diskbench	Version: 2.5.0.5, file Copy, Creation, Read, and Batch Benchmark
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3	Version 2009.4.15.92, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark

Before we move on to any benchmarks, we decided to test the hard drives offline to see what kind of throughput we can expect in an ideal scenario.

We have two PCs running on our home gigabit network. The first, which we will call a server, is equipped with two disk subsystems. The main hard drive is a 320 GB Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS, a couple of years old. The server operates as a NAS with a RAID array consisting of two 1 TB Hitachi Deskstar 0A-38016 hard drives, which are mirrored for redundancy.

We called the second PC on the network a client; it has two hard drives: both 500 GB Western Digital Caviar 00AAJS-00YFA, about six months old.

We first tested the speed of the server and client system hard drives to see what kind of performance we could expect from them. We used the hard drive test in SiSoftware Sandra 2009.

Our dreams of achieving gigabit file transfer speeds were immediately dashed. Both of the single hard drives achieved a maximum read speed of around 75 MB/s under ideal conditions. Since this test is carried out in real conditions, and the drives are 60% full, we can expect read speeds closer to the 65 MB/s index that we received from both hard drives.

But let's look at the performance of RAID 1 - the best thing about this array is that the hardware RAID controller can increase read performance by fetching data from both hard drives at the same time, similar to RAID 0 arrays; but this effect occurs (as far as we know) only with hardware RAID controllers, but not with software solutions RAID. In our tests RAID array provided much faster read performance than a single hard drive, so there's a good chance we'll get fast file transfer speeds over the network from a RAID 1 array. The RAID array delivered an impressive peak throughput of 108 MB/s, but in reality performance should be close to the 88 MB/s index, since the array is 55% full.

So we should get about 88 MB/s over a gigabit network, right? That's not nearly as close to the gigabit network's 125 MB/s ceiling, but it's much faster than 100-Mbit/s networks that have a 12.5 MB/s ceiling, so getting 88 MB/s in practice wouldn't be bad at all.

But it's not that simple. Just because the read speed of hard drives is quite high does not mean that they will write information quickly in real conditions. Let's run some disk writing tests before using the network. We'll start with our server and copy the 4.3GB image from the high-speed RAID array to the 320GB system hard drive and back again. We will then copy the file from the client's D: drive to its C: drive.

As you can see, copying from a fast RAID array to drive C: gave an average speed of only 41 MB/s. And copying from the C: drive to a RAID 1 array resulted in a drop of only 25 MB/s. What's happening?

This is exactly what happens in reality: hard drive C: was released a little over a year ago, but it is 60% full, probably a little fragmented, so it doesn’t break records in terms of recording. There are other factors, namely how fast the system and memory in general works. RAID 1 is made from relatively new hardware, but due to redundancy, information must be written to two hard drives at the same time, which reduces performance. Although RAID 1 can provide high read performance, write speed will have to be sacrificed. Of course, we could use a striped RAID 0 array, which gives high write and read speeds, but if one hard drive dies, then all the information will be corrupted. Overall, RAID 1 is a better option if you value the data stored on the NAS.

However, all is not lost. New 500GB Digital drive Caviar is capable of writing our file at 70.3 MB/s (average of five test runs), and also gives a maximum speed of 73.2 MB/s.

With that said, we were expecting a real-world maximum transfer speed of 73 MB/s over a gigabit network from the NAS RAID 1 array to the client's C: drive. We'll also test file transfers from the client's C: drive to the server's C: drive to see if we can realistically expect 40MB/s in that direction.

Let's start with the first test, in which we sent a file from the client's C: drive to the server's C: drive.

As we can see, the results correspond to our expectations. A gigabit network, theoretically capable of 125 MB/s, sends data from the client's C: drive at the fastest possible speed, probably around 65 MB/s. But as we showed above, the server's C: drive can only write at about 40 MB/s.

Now let's copy the file from the server's high-speed RAID array to drive C: client computer.

Everything turned out as we expected. From our tests, we know that the client computer's C: drive is capable of writing data at about 70 MB/s, and gigabit network performance came very close to that speed.

Unfortunately, our results do not come close to the theoretical maximum throughput of 125 MB/s. Can we test the maximum network speed? Sure, but not in a realistic scenario. We will try to transfer information across the network from memory to memory to bypass any bandwidth limitations of hard drives.

To do this, we will create a 1 GB RAM disk on the server and client PCs, and then transfer the 1 GB file between these disks over the network. Since even slow DDR2 memory is capable of transferring data at speeds of more than 3000 MB/s, network bandwidth will be the limiting factor.

We got a maximum speed of 111.4 MB/s on our Gigabit network, which is very close to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s. An excellent result, there is no need to complain about it, since the actual throughput will still not reach the theoretical maximum due to the transmission of additional information, errors, retransmissions, etc.

The conclusion will be as follows: today, the performance of information transfer over a gigabit network is limited by hard drives, that is, the transfer speed will be limited by the slowest hard drive participating in the process. Having answered the most important question, we can move on to speed tests depending on the cable configuration to make our article complete. Could optimizing cabling bring network speeds even closer to the theoretical limit?

Since performance in our tests was close to expected, we're unlikely to see any improvement by changing the cable configuration. But we still wanted to run tests to get closer to the theoretical speed limit.

We conducted four tests.

Test 1: default.

For this test, we used two cables about 8 meters long, each connected to a computer at one end and a gigabit switch at the other. We left the cables where they were laid, that is, next to the power cables and sockets.

This time we used the same 8-gauge cables as in the first test, but moved the network cable as far away from power cables and extension cords as possible.

In this test, we removed one of the 8-m cables and replaced it with a meter of Cat 5e cable.

In the last test, we replaced the 8's Cat 5e cables with the 8's Cat 6 cables.

In general, our testing of different cable configurations did not show a significant difference, but conclusions can be drawn.

Test 2: reducing interference from power cables.

On small networks like our home network, tests show that you don't have to worry about running LAN cables near electrical cables, outlets, and extension cords. Of course, the interference will be higher, but this will not have a serious effect on the network speed. However, with all that said, it is better to avoid laying it near power cables, and you should remember that the situation may be different on your network.

Test 3: reduce the length of the cables.

This is not a completely correct test, but we tried to detect the difference. It should be remembered that replacing an eight-meter cable with a meter cable may result in the result being simply different cables than differences in distance. In any case, in most tests we do not see a significant difference, with the exception of an abnormal increase in throughput during copying from the client C: drive to the server C: drive.

Test 4: Replace Cat 5e cables with Cat 6 cables.

Again, we found no significant difference. Since the cables are about 8 meters long, longer cables can make a big difference. But if your length is not the maximum, then Cat 5e cables will work quite well on a home gigabit network with a distance of 16 meters between two computers.

It is interesting to note that manipulating the cables had no effect on data transfer between computer RAM disks. It's clear that some other component on the network was limiting performance to the magic number of 111 MB/s. However, such a result is still acceptable.

Do gigabit networks provide gigabit speeds? As it turns out, they almost do.

However, in real conditions, network speed will be seriously limited by hard drives. In a synthetic memory-to-memory scenario, our gigabit network produced performance very close to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s. Regular network speeds, taking into account the performance of hard drives, will be limited to levels from 20 to 85 MB/s, depending on the hard drives used.

We also tested the impact of power cords, cable length, and upgrading from Cat 5e to Cat 6. On our small home network, none of the factors mentioned impacted performance significantly, although we do note that on a larger, more complex network with longer lengths these factors can have a much stronger influence.

In general, if you transfer a large number of files on your home network, then we recommend installing a gigabit network. Upgrading from a 100Mbps network will give you a nice performance boost; at least you'll get a 2x increase in file transfer speeds.

Gigabit Ethernet on your home network can provide greater performance gains if you read files from a fast NAS storage device that uses hardware RAID. On our test network, we transferred a 4.3GB file in just one minute. Over a 100 Mbps connection, the same file took about six minutes to copy.

Gigabit networks are becoming more and more accessible. Now all that remains is to wait for the speeds of hard drives to rise to the same level. In the meantime, we recommend creating arrays that can bypass the limitations modern technologies HDD. Then you can squeeze more performance out of your gigabit network.

I was in no rush to upgrade my home network from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, which is quite strange for me since I transfer a lot of files over the network. However, when I spend money on a computer or infrastructure upgrade, I believe I should get an immediate performance boost in the apps and games I run. Many users like to treat themselves with a new video card, central processor and some gadget. However, for some reason, networking equipment does not attract such enthusiasm. Indeed, it is difficult to invest the money you earn in network infrastructure instead of another technological birthday gift.

However, my bandwidth requirements are very high, and at one point I realized that a 100 Mbit/s infrastructure was no longer enough. All of my home computers already have integrated 1 Gbps adapters (on their motherboards), so I decided to take the price list of the nearest computer company and see what I would need to convert my entire network infrastructure to 1 Gbps.

No, a home gigabit network is not that complicated at all.

The second requirement is that the network card must also support 1 Gbit/s. There is a common misconception that gigabit networks require Cat 5e cable, but in fact even old Cat 5 cable supports 1 Gbps. However, Cat 5e cables have better characteristics, so they will be a more optimal solution for gigabit networks, especially if the cables are of a decent length. However, Cat 5e cables are still the cheapest today, since the old Cat 5 standard is already outdated. Newer and more expensive Cat 6 cables offer even better performance for gigabit networks. We'll compare the performance of Cat 5e vs Cat 6 cables later in our article.

The third and probably most expensive component in a gigabit network is the 1 Gbps hub/switch. Of course, it is better to use a switch (perhaps paired with a router), since a hub or hub is not the most intelligent device, simply broadcasting all network data on all available ports, which leads to a large number of collisions and slows down network performance. If you need high performance, then you cannot do without a gigabit switch, since it forwards network data only to the desired port, which effectively increases the network speed compared to a hub. A router usually contains a built-in switch (with multiple LAN ports) and also allows you to connect your home network to the Internet. Most home users understand the benefits of a router, so a gigabit router is a very attractive option.

CONTENT

The modern world is becoming increasingly dependent on volumes and flows of information flowing in various directions via wires and without them. It all started quite a long time ago and with more primitive means than today’s achievements of the digital world. But we do not intend to describe all the types and methods by which one person conveyed the necessary information to the consciousness of another. In this article I would like to offer the reader a story about a transmission standard that was recently created and is now successfully developing digital information, which is called Ethernet.

The birth of the idea and technology of Ethernet took place within the walls of the Xerox PARC corporation, along with other first developments in the same direction. The official date of invention of Ethernet was May 22, 1973, when Robert Metcalfe wrote a memo to the head of PARC on the potential of Ethernet technology. However, it was patented only a few years later.

In 1979, Metcalfe left Xerox and founded 3Com, whose main task was to promote computers and local area networks (LANs). With the support of such eminent companies as DEC, Intel and Xerox, the Ethernet standard (DIX) was developed. After its official publication on September 30, 1980, it competed with two major patented technologies, token ring and ARCNET, which were later completely superseded due to their lower efficiency and higher cost than Ethernet products.

Initially, according to the proposed standards (Ethernet v1.0 and Ethernet v2.0), they were going to use coaxial cable as the transmission medium, but later they had to abandon this technology and switch to using optical cables and twisted pair.

The main advantage in the early development of Ethernet technology was the access control method. It involves multiple connections with carrier sensing and collision detection (CSMA/CD, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection), the data transfer rate is 10 Mbit/s, the packet size is from 72 to 1526 bytes, and it also describes data encoding methods . The limit for workstations in one shared network segment is limited to 1024, but other smaller values are possible when setting more stringent restrictions on the thin coaxial segment. But this construction very soon became ineffective and was replaced in 1995 by the IEEE 802.3u standard Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps, and later IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet at 1000 Mbps was adopted. On this moment 10 Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3ae is already in full use, with a speed of 10,000 Mbit/s. In addition, we already have developments aimed at achieving speeds of 100,000 Mbit/s 100 Gigabit Ethernet, but first things first.

A very important point underlying the Ethernet standard is its frame format. However, there are quite a few options. Here are some of them:

Variant I is the first-born and already out of use.

Ethernet Version 2 or Ethernet frame II, also called DIX (an abbreviation of the first letters of the development companies DEC, Intel, Xerox) is the most common and is used to this day. Often used directly by the Internet protocol.

Novell - internal modification of IEEE 802.3 without LLC (Logical Link Control).

IEEE 802.2 LLC frame.

IEEE 802.2 LLC/SNAP frame.

In addition, an Ethernet frame may contain an IEEE 802.1Q tag to identify the VLAN to which it is addressed, and an IEEE 802.1p tag to indicate priority.

Some Ethernet network cards manufactured by Hewlett-Packard used an IEEE 802.12 frame format that complies with the 100VG-AnyLAN standard.

For various types frames have different formats and MTU values.

Functional elements of technologyGigabit Ethernet

Note that manufacturers of Ethernet cards and other devices generally include support for several previous data rate standards in their products. By default, using auto-detection of speed and duplex, the card drivers themselves determine the optimal mode of operation of the connection between two devices, but, usually, there is manual selection. So, by purchasing a device with a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port, we get the opportunity to work using 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T technologies.

Here is a chronology of modifications Ethernet, dividing them by transmission speeds.

First solutions:

Xerox Ethernet - original technology, speed 3 Mbit/s, existed in two versions Version 1 and Version 2, frame format latest version is still in wide use.

10BROAD36 - not widely used. One of the first standards allowing work over long distances. Used broadband modulation technology similar to that used in cable modems. Coaxial cable was used as a data transmission medium.

1BASE5 - also known as StarLAN, was the first modification of Ethernet technology to use twisted pair cables. It worked at a speed of 1 Mbit/s, but did not find commercial use.

More common and optimized for their time modifications of 10 Mbit/s Ethernet:

10BASE5, IEEE 802.3 (also called "Thick Ethernet") - the initial development of technology with a data transfer rate of 10 Mbps. IEEE uses 50 ohm coaxial cable (RG-8), with a maximum segment length of 500 meters.

10BASE2, IEEE 802.3a (called "Thin Ethernet") - uses RG-58 cable, with a maximum segment length of 200 meters. To connect computers to each other and connect the cable to the network card, you need a T-connector, and the cable must have a BNC connector. Requires terminators at each end. For many years this standard was the main one for Ethernet technology.

StarLAN 10 - The first development that uses twisted pair cables to transmit data at a speed of 10 Mbit/s. Later, it evolved into the 10BASE-T standard.

10BASE-T, IEEE 802.3i - 4 wires of a twisted pair cable (two twisted pairs) of category 3 or category 5 are used for data transmission. The maximum segment length is 100 meters.

FOIRL - (acronym for Fiber-optic inter-repeater link). The basic standard for Ethernet technology, using optical cable for data transmission. The maximum data transmission distance without a repeater is 1 km.

10BASE-F, IEEE 802.3j - The main term for a family of 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standards using fiber optic cable over distances of up to 2 kilometers: 10BASE-FL, 10BASE-FB and 10BASE-FP. Of the above, only 10BASE-FL has become widespread.

10BASE-FL (Fiber Link) - An improved version of the FOIRL standard. The improvement concerned an increase in the length of the segment to 2 km.

10BASE-FB (Fiber Backbone) - Currently an unused standard, intended for combining repeaters into a backbone.

10BASE-FP (Fiber Passive) - A passive star topology that does not require repeaters - developed but never used.

The most common and inexpensive choice at the time of writing Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s) ( Fast Ethernet):

100BASE-T - The basic term for one of the three 100 Mbit/s Ethernet standards, using twisted pair cable as a data transmission medium. Segment length up to 100 meters. Includes 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4 and 100BASE-T2.

100BASE-TX, IEEE 802.3u - Development of 10BASE-T technology, a star topology is used, a category 5 twisted pair cable is used, which actually uses 2 pairs of conductors, the maximum data transfer rate is 100 Mbit/s.

100BASE-T4 - 100 Mbps Ethernet over Category 3 cable. All 4 pairs are used. Now it is practically not used. Data transmission occurs in half-duplex mode.

100BASE-T2 - Not used. 100 Mbps Ethernet over Category 3 cable. Only 2 pairs are used. Full duplex transmission mode is supported, when signals propagate in opposite directions on each pair. Transmission speed in one direction is 50 Mbit/s.

100BASE-FX - 100 Mbps Ethernet over fiber optic cable. The maximum segment length is 400 meters in half-duplex mode (for guaranteed collision detection) or 2 kilometers in full-duplex mode over multimode optical fiber.

100BASE-LX - 100 Mbps Ethernet over fiber optic cable. The maximum segment length is 15 kilometers in full duplex mode over a pair of single-mode optical fibers at a wavelength of 1310 nm.

100BASE-LX WDM - 100 Mbps Ethernet over fiber optic cable. The maximum segment length is 15 kilometers in full duplex mode over one single-mode optical fiber at a wavelength of 1310 nm and 1550 nm. Interfaces come in two types, differ in the wavelength of the transmitter and are marked either with numbers (wavelength) or with one Latin letter A (1310) or B (1550). Only paired interfaces can operate in pairs, with a transmitter at 1310 nm on one side and a transmitter at 1550 nm on the other.

Gigabit Ethernet

1000BASE-T, IEEE 802.3ab - 1 Gbps Ethernet standard. Category 5e or category 6 twisted pair cable is used. All 4 pairs are involved in data transmission. Data transfer speed - 250 Mbit/s over one pair.

1000BASE-TX, - A 1 Gbps Ethernet standard using only Category 6 twisted pair cable. The transmitting and receiving pairs are physically separated by two pairs in each direction, which greatly simplifies the design of transceiver devices. Data transfer speed - 500 Mbit/s over one pair. Practically not used.

1000Base-X - general term to denote Gigabit Ethernet technology with pluggable GBIC or SFP transceivers.

1000BASE-SX, IEEE 802.3z - 1 Gbit/s Ethernet technology uses lasers with an acceptable radiation length within the range of 770-860 nm, transmitter radiation power ranging from -10 to 0 dBm with an ON/OFF ratio (signal/no signal) not less than 9 dB. Receiver sensitivity 17 dBm, receiver saturation 0 dBm. Using multimode fiber, the signal transmission range without a repeater is up to 550 meters.

1000BASE-LX, IEEE 802.3z - 1 Gbit/s Ethernet technology uses lasers with an acceptable radiation length within the range of 1270-1355 nm, transmitter radiation power ranging from 13.5 to 3 dBm, with an ON/OFF ratio (there is a signal/ no signal) not less than 9 dB. Receiver sensitivity 19 dBm, receiver saturation 3 dBm. When using multimode fiber, the signal transmission range without a repeater is up to 550 meters. Optimized for long distances using single-mode fiber (up to 40 km).

1000BASE-CX - Gigabit Ethernet technology for short distances (up to 25 meters), uses a special copper cable (Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)) with a characteristic impedance of 150 Ohms. Replaced by the 1000BASE-T standard and is no longer used.

1000BASE-LH (Long Haul) - 1 Gbit/s Ethernet technology, uses single-mode optical cable, signal transmission range without a repeater is up to 100 kilometers.

Standard	Cable type	Bandwidth (no worse), MHz*Km	Max. distance, m *
1000BASE-LX (1300 nm laser diode)	Singlemode fiber (9 µm)
	Multimode fiber (50 µm)
	Multimode fiber (62.5 µm)
1000BASE-SX (850 nm laser diode)	Multimode fiber (50 µm)
	Multimode fiber (62.5 µm)
	Multimode fiber (62.5 µm)
	Shielded Twisted Pair STP (150 ohm)
* 1000BASE-SX and 1000BASE-LX standards require full-duplex mode ** Equipment from some manufacturers can provide longer distances; optical segments without intermediate repeaters/amplifiers can reach 100 km.

1000Base-X Standards Specifications

10 Gigabit Ethernet

Still quite expensive, but quite popular, the new 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard includes seven physical media standards for LAN, MAN and WAN. It is currently covered by the IEEE 802.3a amendment and should be included in the next revision of the IEEE 802.3 standard.

10GBASE-CX4 - 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology for short distances (up to 15 meters), uses CX4 copper cable and InfiniBand connectors.

10GBASE-SR - 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology for short distances (up to 26 or 82 meters, depending on cable type), uses multimode fiber. It also supports distances of up to 300 meters using new multimode fiber (2000 MHz/km).

10GBASE-LX4 - uses wavelength multiplexing to support distances of 240 to 300 meters over multimode fiber. Also supports distances up to 10 kilometers using single-mode fiber.

10GBASE-LR and 10GBASE-ER - these standards support distances of up to 10 and 40 kilometers, respectively.

10GBASE-SW, 10GBASE-LW and 10GBASE-EW - These standards use a physical interface compatible in speed and data format with the OC-192 / STM-64 SONET/SDH interface. They are similar to the 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE-LR and 10GBASE-ER standards, respectively, as they use the same cable types and transmission distances.

10GBASE-T, IEEE 802.3an-2006 - adopted in June 2006 after 4 years of development. Uses shielded twisted pair cable. Distances - up to 100 meters.

And finally, what do we know about 100-Gigabit Ethernet(100-GE), still quite crude, but quite in demand technology.

In April 2007, following a meeting of the IEEE 802.3 committee in Ottawa, the Higher Speed Study Group (HSSG) agreed on technical approaches to forming 100-GE optical and copper links. Currently fully formed working group 802.3ba to develop the 100-GE specification.

As in previous developments, the 100-GE standard will take into account not only the economic and technical feasibility of its implementation, but also their backward compatibility with existing systems. At this time, the need for such speeds has been indisputably proven by leading companies. Constantly growing volumes of personalized content, including the delivery of videos from portals such as YouTube and other resources using IPTV and HDTV technologies. We should also mention video on demand. All this determines the need for 100 Gigabit Ethernet operators and service providers.

But against the backdrop of a large selection of old and promising new technological approaches within the Ethernet group, we want to dwell in more detail on a technology that today is only becoming fully widespread in use due to the falling cost of its components. Gigabit Ethernet can fully support applications such as streaming video, video conferencing, transmission of complex images that place increased demands on channel capacity. The benefits of increasing transmission speeds on corporate and home networks are becoming increasingly clear as prices for this class of equipment fall.

Now the IEEE standard has gained maximum popularity. Adopted in June 1998, it was approved as IEEE 802.3z. But at first, only optical cable was used as a transmission medium. With the approval of the 802.3ab standard over the next year, the transmission medium became Category 5 unshielded twisted pair cable.

Gigabit Ethernet is a direct descendant of Ethernet and Fast Ethernet, which have proven themselves over almost twenty years of history, maintaining their reliability and prospects for use. Along with backward compatibility with previous solutions (the cable structure remains unchanged), it provides a theoretical throughput of 1000 Mbps, which is approximately 120 MB per second. It is worth noting that such capabilities are almost equal to the speed of the 32-bit PCI 33 MHz bus. That is why gigabit adapters are available for both 32-bit PCI (33 and 66 MHz) and 64-bit bus. Along with this increase in speed, Gigabit Ethernet inherits all the previous features of Ethernet, such as frame format, CSMA/CD technology (transmission-sensitive multiple access with collision detection), full duplex, etc. Although high speeds They also introduced their own innovations, but it is precisely in the inheritance of old standards that the huge advantage and popularity of Gigabit Ethernet lies. Of course, other solutions are now proposed, such as ATM and Fiber Channel, but here the main advantage for the end consumer is immediately lost. The transition to another technology leads to massive rework and re-equipment of enterprise networks, while Gigabit Ethernet will allow you to smoothly increase speed and not change the cable management. This approach has allowed Ethernet technology to take a dominant place in the field of network technologies and conquer more than 80 percent of the global information transmission market.

The structure of building an Ethernet network with smooth transitions to higher data transfer rates.

Initially, all Ethernet standards were developed using only optical cable as a transmission medium - this is how Gigabit Ethernet received the 1000BASE-X interface. It is based on the Fiber Channel physical layer standard (this is a technology for interconnecting workstations, storage devices and peripheral nodes). Since this technology had already been approved previously, this borrowing greatly reduced the time it took to develop the Gigabit Ethernet standard. 1000BASE-X

We, like the average person, were more interested in 1000Base-CX due to its operation on shielded twisted pair (STP “twinax”) over short distances and 1000BASE-T for unshielded twisted pair category 5. The main difference between 1000BASE-T and Fast Ethernet 100BASE- TX became that all four pairs were used (in 100BASE-TX only two were used). Each pair can transmit data at a speed of 250 Mbit/s. The standard provides full-duplex transmission, with flow on each pair being provided in two directions simultaneously. Due to the strong interference during such transmission, it was technically much more difficult to implement gigabit transmission over twisted pair than in 100BASE-TX, which required the development of a special scrambled noise-resistant transmission, as well as an intelligent unit for recognizing and restoring the signal at the reception. 5-level PAM-5 pulse-amplitude coding was used as a coding method in the 1000BASE-T standard.

The criteria for cable selection have also become more stringent. To reduce interference, unidirectional transmission, return loss, delay and phase shift, Category 5e for unshielded twisted pair cable was adopted.

Cable crimping for 1000BASE-T is carried out according to one of the following schemes:

Straight-through cable.

Crossover cable.

Cable crimping diagrams for 1000BASE-T

Innovations also affected the level of the 1000BASE-T MAC standard. In Ethernet networks, the maximum distance between stations (collision domain) is determined based on the minimum frame size (in the Ethernet IEEE 802.3 standard it was 64 bytes). The maximum segment length must be such that the transmitting station can detect a collision before the end of frame transmission (the signal must have time to travel to the other end of the segment and return back). Accordingly, when the transmission speed increases, it is necessary to either increase the frame size, thereby increasing the minimum time for frame transmission, or reduce the diameter of the collision domain.

When moving to Fast Ethernet, we used the second option and reduced the segment diameter. This was not acceptable in Gigabit Ethernet. Indeed, in this case, the standard, which inherited such Fast Ethernet components as the minimum frame size, CSMA/CD and collision detection time (time slot), will be able to work in collision domains with a diameter of no more than 20 meters. Therefore, it was proposed to increase the time for transmitting the minimum frame. Considering that for compatibility with previous Ethernet, the minimum frame size was left the same - 64 bytes, and an additional carrier extension field was added to the frame, which expands the frame to 512 bytes, but the field is not added when the frame size is greater than 512 byte. Thus, the resulting minimum frame size was equal to 512 bytes, the time for collision detection increased, and the segment diameter increased to the same 200 meters (in the case of 1000BASE-T). The characters in the carrier extension field do not carry any meaning; the checksum for them is not calculated. When a frame is received, this field is discarded at the MAC layer, so higher layers continue to work with minimum frames of 64 bytes in length.

But even here they arose underwater rocks. Although the media extension maintained compatibility with previous standards, it was a waste of bandwidth. Losses can reach 448 bytes (512-64) per frame in case of short frames. Therefore, the 1000BASE-T standard was modernized - the concept of Packet Bursting was introduced. It allows you to use the expansion field much more effectively. And it works like this: if an adapter or switch has several small frames that require sending, then the first of them is sent in the standard way, with the addition of an extension field of up to 512 bytes. And all subsequent ones are sent in their original form (without the extension field), with a minimum interval between them of 96 bits. And, most importantly, this interframe interval is filled with media extension symbols. This happens until the total size of sent frames reaches the limit of 1518 bytes. Thus, the medium does not become silent throughout the transmission of small frames, so a collision can only occur at the first stage, when transmitting the first correct small frame with a media extension field (512 bytes in size). This mechanism can significantly improve network performance, especially under heavy loads, by reducing the likelihood of collisions.

But this turned out to be not enough. At first Gigabit Ethernet only supported standard sizes Ethernet frames - from a minimum of 64 (expandable to 512) to a maximum of 1518 bytes. Of these, 18 bytes are occupied by the standard service header, and for data there remain from 46 to 1500 bytes, respectively. But even a data packet of 1500 bytes is too small in the case of a gigabit network. Especially for servers that transfer large amounts of data. Let's do some math. To transfer a 1 GB file over an unloaded Fast Ethernet network, the server processes 8200 packets/sec and takes at least 11 seconds. In this case, interrupt processing alone will take about 10 percent of the time of a 200 MIPS computer. After all, the central processor must process (calculate the checksum, transfer data to memory) each incoming packet.

Characteristics of transmission of Ethernet networks.

In gigabit networks, the situation is even sadder - the load on the processor increases by approximately an order of magnitude due to the reduction in the time interval between frames and, accordingly, interrupt requests to the processor. From Table 1 it can be seen that even under the best conditions (using frames of the maximum size), the frames are separated from each other by a time interval not exceeding 12 μs. In case of using frames smaller size this time interval is only decreasing. Therefore, in gigabit networks, the bottleneck, oddly enough, was precisely the frame processing stage of the processor. Therefore, at the dawn of Gigabit Ethernet, actual transfer speeds were far from the theoretical maximum - processors simply could not cope with the load.

The obvious way out of this situation is the following:

increasing the time interval between frames;

shifting part of the frame processing load from central processor on himself network adapter.

Both methods are currently implemented. In 1999 it was proposed to increase the size of the package. Such packets were called giga frames (Jumbo Frames), and their size could be from 1518 to 9018 bytes (currently, equipment from some manufacturers supports larger giga frame sizes). Jumbo Frames have reduced the CPU load by up to 6 times (proportional to their size) and thus significantly increased performance. For example, a maximum Jumbo Frame of 9018 bytes, in addition to the 18-byte header, contains 9000 bytes of data, which corresponds to six standard maximum Ethernet frames. The performance gain is achieved not due to getting rid of several overhead headers (traffic from their transmission does not exceed several percent of the total throughput), but by reducing the time for processing such a frame. More precisely, the time to process a frame remains the same, but instead of several small frames, each of which would require N processor cycles and one interrupt, we process only one, larger frame.

The fairly rapidly developing world of information processing speed provides increasingly faster and low cost solutions on the use of special hardware to remove part of the traffic processing load from the central processor. Buffering technology is also used, which ensures that the processor is interrupted to process several frames at once. At this time, Gigabit Ethernet technology is becoming more and more accessible for use at home, which will directly interest the common user. Faster access to home resources will provide high-quality viewing of high-resolution video, take less time to redistribute information and, finally, allow live encoding of video streams onto network drives.

Resource materials were used in preparing the article http://www.ixbt.com/ andhttp://www.wikipedia.org/.

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Before the milk had even dried, as they say, on the lips of the newly born fast Ethernet standard, the 802 committee began work on new version(1995). It was almost immediately dubbed the gigabit Ethernet network, and in 1998 the new standard was already ratified by the IEEE under the official name 802.3z. Thus, the developers emphasized that this is the latest development in the 802.3 line (unless someone urgently comes up with a name for the standards, say, 802.3s. At one time, Bernard Shaw proposed expanding the English alphabet and including in it, in particular, the letter “s”, but was not convincing.).

The main prerequisites for the creation of 802.3z were the same as for the creation of 802.3u - to increase speed by 10 times while maintaining backward compatibility with older Ethernet networks. In particular, Gigabit Ethernet was supposed to provide acknowledgment-free datagram service for both one-way and multicast transmissions. At the same time, it was necessary to keep the 48-bit addressing scheme and frame format unchanged, including lower and upper limits on its size. New standard satisfied all these requirements.

Gigabit Ethernet networks are built on the point-to-point principle; they do not use a mono channel, as in the original 10-Mbit Ethernet, which, by the way, is now called classic Ethernet. The simplest gigabit network, shown in diagram a, consists of two computers directly connected to each other. In a more general case, however, there is a switch or hub to which many computers are connected; it is also possible to install additional switches or hubs (scheme "b"). But in any case, two devices are always connected to one Gigabit Ethernet cable, no more, no less.

Gigabit Ethernet can operate in two modes: full duplex and half duplex. “Normal” is considered full duplex, and traffic can flow simultaneously in both directions. This mode is used when there is a central switch connected to peripheral computers or switches. In this configuration, the signals on all lines are buffered, so subscribers can send data whenever they want. The sender does not listen to the channel because he has no one to compete with. On a line between a computer and a switch, the computer is the only potential sender; the transfer will occur successfully even if at the same time there is a transfer from the switch side (the line is full duplex). Since there is no competition in this case, the CSMA/CD protocol is not used, so the maximum cable length is determined solely by the signal power, and issues of propagation time of the noise burst do not arise here. Switches can operate at mixed speeds; Moreover, they automatically select the optimal speed. Plug and play is supported in the same way as in Fast Ethernet.

Half-duplex operation is used when computers are connected not to a switch, but to a hub. The hub does not buffer incoming frames. Instead, it electrically connects all the lines, simulating a mono link of regular Ethernet. In this mode, collisions are possible, so CSMA/CD is used. Since the minimum frame size (i.e. 64 bytes) can be transmitted 100 times faster than in a classic Ethernet network, the maximum segment length must be reduced by a factor of 100 accordingly. It is 25 m - it is at this distance between stations that the noise burst is guaranteed to reach the sender before the end of its transmission. If the cable were 2500 m long, then the sender of a 64-byte frame at 1 Gbit / s would have time to do a lot even while his frame has traveled only a tenth of the way in one direction, not to mention the fact that the signal must and also come back.

The 802.3z standard development committee rightly noted that 25 m is an unacceptably short length, and introduced two new features that made it possible to expand the radius of the segments. The first is called media extension. This extension simply consists of the fact that the hardware inserts its own padding field, stretching a normal frame to 512 bytes. Since this field is added by the sender and removed by the recipient, the software doesn't care about it. Of course, spending 512 bytes to transfer 46 bytes is a bit wasteful in terms of bandwidth efficiency. The efficiency of such transmission is only 9%.

The second property that allows you to increase the allowable segment length is packet frame transmission. This means that the sender can send not a single frame, but a packet that combines many frames at once. If the total length of the packet is less than 512 bytes, then, as in the previous case, hardware filling with dummy data is performed. If there are enough frames waiting to be transmitted to fill such a large packet, then the system is very efficient. This scheme, of course, is preferable to media expansion. These methods made it possible to increase the maximum segment length to 200 m, which is probably already quite acceptable for organizations.

It's hard to imagine an organization that would spend a lot of effort and money installing cards for a high-performance gigabit Ethernet network, and then connect computers with hubs that simulate the operation of classic Ethernet with all its collisions and other problems. Hubs, of course, are cheaper than switches, but Gigabit Ethernet interface cards are still relatively expensive, so saving money on buying a hub instead of a switch is not worth it. In addition, this sharply reduces performance, and it becomes completely unclear why they spent money on gigabit boards. However, backward compatibility is something sacred in the computer industry, so, no matter what, 802.3z provides such a feature.

Gigabit Ethernet supports both copper and fiber optic cables. Operating at 1 Gbps means the light source must turn on and off approximately once every nanosecond. LEDs simply can't work that fast, which is why lasers are needed. The standard provides for two operational wavelengths: 0.85 µm (short waves) and 1.3 µm (long waves). Lasers rated at 0.85 microns are cheaper, but do not work with single-mode cables.

Gigabit Ethernet Cables
Name	Type	Segment length	Advantages
1000Base-SX	Optical fiber	550m	Multimode fiber (50, 62.5 µm)
1000Base-LX	Optical fiber	5000m	Singlemode (10 µm) or multimode (50, 62.5 µm) fiber
1000Base-CX	2 shielded twisted pairs	25m	Shielded twisted pair
1000Base-T	4 unshielded twisted pairs	100m	Standard Category 5 Twisted Pair

Officially, three fiber diameters are allowed: 10, 50 and 62.5 microns. The first one is intended for single-mode transmission, the other two are for multimode transmission. Not all of the six combinations are allowed, and the maximum segment length depends on the selected combination. The numbers given in the table are the best case. In particular, the five-kilometer cable can only be used with a laser designed for a wavelength of 1.3 microns and working with 10 micrometer single-mode fiber. This option is apparently the best for highways of various kinds of campuses and industrial areas. It is expected to be the most popular despite being the most expensive.

1000Base-CX uses a short shielded copper cable. The problem is that it is being squeezed by competitors both from above (1000Base-LX) and from below (1000Base-T). As a result, it is doubtful that it will gain widespread public acceptance.

Finally, another cable option is a bundle of four unshielded twisted pairs. Since such wiring exists almost everywhere, it looks like this will be the most popular gigabit Ethernet.

The new standard uses new rules for encoding signals transmitted over optical fiber. The Manchester code at a data rate of 1 Gbit/s would require a signal rate of 2 Gbaud. It's too complicated and takes up too much bandwidth. Instead of Manchester coding, a scheme called 8V/10V is used. As you can guess from the name, each byte, consisting of 8 bits, is encoded for transmission over the fiber with ten bits. Since 1024 resulting codewords are possible for each incoming byte, this method gives some freedom in choosing code words. The following rules are taken into account:

No codeword should have more than four identical bits in a row;

No code word should contain more than six zeros or six ones.

Why these particular rules?

First, they provide enough state changes in the data stream to keep the receiver in sync with the transmitter.

Secondly, they try to approximately equalize the number of zeros and ones. In addition, many incoming bytes have two possible codewords associated with them. When the encoder has a choice of codewords, it will likely choose one that equals the number of zeros and ones.

The balanced number of zeros and ones is given such importance because it is necessary to keep the DC component of the signal as low as possible. Then it will be able to pass through the converters without changes. People involved in computer science are not happy with the fact that converter devices dictate certain rules for encoding signals, but life is life.

Gigabit Ethernet, built on 1000Base-T, uses a different encoding scheme, since it is difficult to change the signal state within 1 ns for copper cable. It uses 4 twisted pairs of category 5, which makes it possible to transmit 4 characters in parallel. Each character is encoded in one of five voltage levels. Thus, one signal can mean 00, 01,10 or 11. There is also a special, service voltage value. There are 2 bits of data per twisted pair, so in one time interval the system transmits 8 bits over 4 twisted pairs. Clock frequency equal to 125 MHz, which allows operation at a speed of 1 Gbit/s. A fifth voltage level was added for special purposes - framing and control.

1 Gbps is quite a lot. For example, if the receiver is distracted by something for 1 ms and forgets or does not have time to free the buffer, this means that it will “sleep” for approximately 1953 frames. There may be another situation: one computer outputs data over a gigabit network, and the other receives it over classic Ethernet. The first one will probably quickly overwhelm the second one with data. First of all, the clipboard will become full. Based on this, the decision was made to introduce flow control into the system (this was also the case with fast Ethernet, although these systems are quite different).

To implement flow control, one of the parties sends a service frame indicating that the other party needs to pause for a while. Service personnel are, in fact, ordinary Ethernet frames, in the Type field of which 0x8808 is written. The first two bytes of the data field are command ones, and the subsequent ones, if necessary, contain command parameters. To control the flow, frames of the PAUSE type are used, and the duration of the pause is specified as a parameter in units of the minimum frame transmission time. For Gigabit Ethernet, this unit is 512 ns, and pauses can last up to 33.6 ms.

Gigabit Ethernet was standardized and the 802 committee got bored. Then IEEE invited him to start working on 10-Gigabit Ethernet. Long attempts began to find some letter after z in the English alphabet. When it became obvious that such a letter does not exist in nature, it was decided to abandon the old approach and move to two-letter indices. This is how the 802.3ae standard appeared in 2002. Apparently, the advent of 100-Gigabit Ethernet is also just around the corner.

Decide if your network needs to be upgraded.

If you and your family members regularly download large files, stream media on the Internet or perform other tasks that heavily load your network, for example, a file hosting server, or play Online Games, you'd happily invest in upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet.
Medium and large enterprises require many users to be connected over a network and simultaneously increase their productivity.
Individuals who use the Internet alone for non-resource-intensive network tasks, such as Email, instant messages or web surfing, may not see the benefit of upgrading network access to Gigabit Ethernet.

Inspect the network ports on your devices.

If you purchased your computer, game console, or other network-enabled device in the last two or three years, it may already have Gigabit Ethernet-ready network ports.
On Windows: Click on the start menu, click on the search bar (or click "Run..." according to Windows version), enter ncpa.cpl and press "enter". Click right click on the icon of your network adapter, then left on “Properties”. In the dialog box that opens, click the "Configure..." button. In the new dialog box, find the item corresponding to “connection type” or “Speed” and select it. If you see "1.0 Gbps, Full Duplex" or something similar in the drop-down menu, your computer is ready for a Gigabit Ethernet connection. If not, you may need to update your hardware as described in step 6 below.
On Ubuntu 12.04: Right-click on the networks icon on the top panel of the desktop, and then left-click on “Connection Information”. In the dialog box that appears, look at the "Speed" value. A value of 1000 Mbps indicates the system's readiness for the Gigabit Ethernet standard.
For other devices, check the instructions and specifications devices. Look in the characteristics of the network adapter keywords"gigabit" or "1000 Mbit/s".

Don't forget about network printers.

If you often use network printer, you might decide to test it for Gigabit Ethernet readiness as well. Check the instructions, same as in the step above.

Check your cables.

Look at the braid on your network cables and pay attention to the type of cable printed on it. If they are labeled "Cat5e" then you are ready. If not, you can buy new cables, which is usually inexpensive.
In most cases, Cat6 cables do not provide significant performance improvements over Cat5e cables. However, if you want to improve your network in the future, you can use Cat6 cables.

Check your router/switch.

Even if all parts of your network are upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet, and the router and switch are still FastEthernet, they will become the bottleneck of your network.
For home use, many people already use a combination of a router and a switch in a single device. A home gigabit router/switch is the same.

* For home use, many people already use a combination of a router and a switch in a single device. A home gigabit router/switch is the same.

Step 2 describes how to test your network equipment for compatibility with the Gigabit Ethernet standard. If you determine that there is no compatibility, then you have several options.
An economical option would be to purchase a gigabit PCI network card. This card fits into the back of your computer along with the rest of your hardware. The disadvantages of this configuration will be speeds that are suboptimal, and you will always need to remember which port is connected to the gigabit network card, and which one – with the old FastEthernet. Accidentally connecting a Cat5e cable to a FastEthernet port will not provide any performance gain.
A slightly more expensive but more effective solution may be to replace your computer's motherboard. Make sure your motherboard has a built-in gigabit adapter. For maximum speed, buy a 64-bit motherboard, confident that your processor is compatible with it, or you will be able to buy one. Most large computer stores will help you choose the right product and install it for you to ensure compatibility.

Update software your devices to the latest.

Now that you've upgraded your hardware, or even if you didn't need to upgrade it, it's time to make sure all your software and drivers are up to date. This is necessary for maximum speed, performance and reliability. Updates included in the package Windows updates, may be insufficient. Visit your device manufacturers' websites and download Latest updates straight from the sources.

Improve your media storage and RAM.

Ideally, files can be moved as quickly as media, meaning HDD where they are stored.
Make sure your speed hard drive(s) at 7200 rpm, and consider organizing RAID 1 to increase access speed.
An alternative solution may be to use a solid state drive. It is more expensive than a conventional hard drive, but allows reading and writing almost instantly, eliminating the bottleneck of conventional hard drives– their speed.
Increasing the amount of RAM in your system will also improve overall performance. 8GB is a good minimum, but you may not notice much improvement beyond 12GB of RAM unless you use a lot of resource-intensive tasks like 3D rendering or simulation programs.

Frame size

Frames/sec

Data transfer rate, Mbit/s

Interval between frames, µs