Gigabit upgrade

[grant862]

so i have a older computer running windows server 2003. I have 5 HDs, 4 on a software raid 5 array and 1 as the boot drive. they are all 200gb 7200 rpm Ultra ATA/100 w/ 8m cache. right now i write and read data to the computer through my network in my house. If i upgrade to gigabit, will only cost me about 25 bucks for a new router and pci card, will i see a improvement in the write/read speeds or will the combination of my software raid array and HDs kind of limit me to seeing a noticable or cost efficent difference.

Im assuming the read speeds will increase a lot but the write speeds stay about the same. But im not an expert like you guys....so any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[mjc]

You are going to be limited by the drive speed...just like you are now.

[grant862]

thanks, thats what i figured...saves me money i guess :)

[saphalline]

100 Mbit is really only 12.5MB/s. Hard drive throughput should exceed that!

My friend and I have GbE and with 125MB/s to play with, the network transfer speeds are amazing! For us, it was well worth the cost of Gigabit. Right now, it's only about 20% slower to transfer a large file over the network vs internally (ie, from one internal hard drive to another). We used to have standard 100Mbit, and Gigabit is way faster!

I'd suggest sinking the money into it if you often transfer large amounts of data. Gigabit's max transfer rate exceeds the throughput of hard drives. 100Mbit can't boast that!

[mjc]

True...but most ATA 100 drives aren't going to approach a sustained transfer of anywhere near the max...and in fact most of the time that is going to be rather slow, no matter what network speed.

If the drives were SATA, I'd say go for it...or if you have plans for moving to SATA drives, but right now, there won't be that much, if any noticeable improvement.

[grant862]

thanks for your input...i dont have any plans to go to sata yet because i just got some ide drives extremely cheap and im on a tight budget...so i think that i can wait a little extra to transfer large files...maybe it will give me a chance to take a nap or grab a bite

Thanks guys for all your input...greatly apprecaited