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I've setup a server which I've connected to multiple PCs in my workplace. Sadly, data transfer speeds are at max 3 MB/sec per connection which works out slow for file transfers, especially when transferring large files. I'm using Windows filesharing and the server is a Windows Server 2008 (2 Ghz CPU, 1 GB RAM) and the client PCs mostly running Windows 7. How can I detect bottlenecks in my network and improve file sharing speed within the network?

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Hoping the Windows Server 2008 is "Server 2008 r2". Can understand a limitation of moving to "r2" requires 64bit OS & CPU. Immediately noticing server has 1GB RAM, which would be low for a server. 2GHz CPU is ambiguous, for instance a 2GHz P4 versus a 2GHz Xeon E5-2650 would be a 50 fold performance difference. State of storage is not known, such as where the OS and fileshares reside physically and logically to the server.

From Microsoft: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb414778.aspx

Hence, main concern would be the health and viability of the server before moving to physical and logical network components (switch, cables, VLANs, QoS, bandwidth, noise, etc).

Performance tuning instantiates with obtaining a local server baseline. To get started, and better form a basis of the sever situation, do check these solid guides for Server 2008's own Performance Monitor. It is a big topic, an overview:

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By doing some basic analytics:

  • consult the network map for slow devices (hubs)
  • see if other devices are also on the network that are using bandwidth
  • see if how much IO, cpu and memory is being used on the server while doing transfers
  • see how much IO, cpu and memory is being used by the desktops
  • see if there are any bandwidth shaping rules in place

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