[PLUG] How fast is my network, really?

[John Jason Jordan]

My laptop and my desktop are connected over ethernet, all components of
which are cat6, and each computer has gigabit lan built in. Since Aaron
helped me get my backup partition on the desktop fixed at the Clinic
today, this evening I decided it was time to back up the laptop to the
desktop. By my calculation it ran at about 105 MB per minute. However,
I cannot figure out how fast "gigabit" is in terms of real bytes. I
noted that the hard drives on the desktop (which is SATA-2) came on and
off, and the laptop (which is probably SATA-1, and definitely slower)
was only flickering, not on constantly. Thus, I conclude that the
network was the bottleneck, not the hard disks. Or maybe the bottleneck
is dar, which is the tool I used (via Home User Backup). Both computers
run Gutsy x86_64.

Is 105 MB/minute a decent rate? What is typical in the real world for
this kind of equipment?