Network card speed problem?

Question

I have a desktop pc and a notebook (Acer 5610). Whenever i try to send big files (600 mb+) it takes 6 to 10 mins and sometimes more. The router or the network card says 50 mbps or something like that, according to that shouldn't it take very few mins to transfer large files?

Just to make it clear, I am not talking about transferring files using the internet. I'm actually talking about transferring files using LAN (from my desktop pc to my notebook). Sorry for not mentioning this earlier.

Answer 1

Think of a data network like plumbing for water. Your data is only going to transfer as fast as the slowest connection. You might have a big fat pipe from your sink to the sewer, but if the sewer pipe from your house to the sewer pipe in the street is only 1/2 inch in diameter it don't matter how big the pipe from your sink is.

You might have a high speed connection to your router, but the connection from the router to the next device upstream is probably a lot slower. To know for sure, you need to find out what the upload data rate is from your provider. Odds are it's only 350Kbps or so.

Also, when doing a file transfer a protocol used UDP/IP is utilized. While UDP/IP is more efficiently then TCP/IP, it does lots of retransmissions when packets get dropped between sender and receiver. UDP just sends packets, the receiver side application puts the packets back together into your 600mb file, but if a packet is lost all the packets from the lost one onward are resent again. Conclusion, you might be sending parts of that file 5 or 6 times before the receiving application gets it all.