Hey fellow homelabbers! I’m on a quest for knowledge, and I must admit, I’m still a bit of a noob in the homelab and networking realm. So, please, be gentle with me as I embark on this journey of discovery. Big thanks in advance for any pearls of wisdom you can share.

Now, let’s get to the nitty-gritty. I’ve got a couple of machines playing the role of file servers, getting decent transfer speeds on GbE - sometimes hitting 500 Mbps+ on spinning rust in a RAID5 array. However, there’s this ancient Dell E521 that I dug up from the computer graveyard. I slapped on a GbE PCIe card and turned it into an additional backup for my family photos and videos. Here’s the kicker: when I’m trying to transfer files to a HDD over the network, it’s crawling at a pace that makes snails look like speed demons - maxing out at a whopping 15 MB/s. Is this speed to be expected from this machine?

Now, it’s not like I desperately need this machine to break any speed records, but my curiosity is on overdrive. In the spirit of learning more about homelab sorcery and because it’s bugging me, I need your brains on this. Why is this old Dell acting like it’s stuck in dial-up mode? Could it be something like SATA port or PCI lane bandwidth? I stumbled upon this gem on the DELL Community Page, and if my detective skills are on point, this shouldn’t be the culprit, right?

“Dimension E521 has PCI Express slots of version 1.0A. The single-directional speed of the x1 port is 250 MB/s, and as the port is bi-directional, the speed supported is 500 MB/s. The system supports SATA 1.0 (1.5 Gbps) and SATA 2.0 (3.0 Gbps) storage devices via the SATA ports.”

Now, for the star of the show, let’s give the Dell E521 its moment in the spotlight:

DELL E521 SPECS:

Windows 10 Pro
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+
8GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
250GB SSD
2 x 4TB WD Blue HDD (JBOD configuration)
TP-Link Gigabit PCI Express Network Adapter (TG-3468)
https://amzn.eu/d/1nbMptG
Cat5e to the GbE Port

So, dear lab wizards, lend me your wisdom! Why is my Dell E521 playing hard to get with the fast file transfer speeds?🕵️‍♂️💻