Originally Posted by
BigLar
I just finished an install/upgrade with a brand new Lenovo desktop re-imaging from a slightly older Dell. It was computer-to-computer and I watched it run. It seemed to be taking a while, so I brought up the Task Manager and watched. For much of the time. the rate was in the 3-6 megabytes/sec range with occasional spurts up to 15-20. Then for a while it was 70-80 and I even saw one burst of 100+.
Using what software/protocol? Most things are horrible for lots of small files (as are disks) -- if you're using imaging software that sequentializes things over the network (or piping across tar) or only copying very big files, it should be pretty trivial to get
min(drive1 max sequential read, network speed, drive2 max sequential write) 
The point is, there are a lot more things going on than just a fast ethernet connection and powerful cpu.
Sure; disk speed, file system overhead on two sides (at least potentially) and network protocol overhead. Plus anything else running on both systems at the same time.
Yehah - I've been surprised at finding relatively new machines with 10/100 connections. By this time, I would assume they're all Gb.
Yeah; I haven't seen a new PC with 10/100 built-in since right around the turn of the decade. It's only in the last couple of years that it's become ubiquitous on routers, though.
Then again, there are a lot of folks out there with routers having 4x10/100 ports and a lot of "fast" ethernet switches.
Yeah; I was baffled that there was quite a while when you could easily get Wireless-N routers doing 300+ Mbps, but which only had 100Base-T ethernet. Still not that uncommon.
10/100 works fine and it's faster and more reliable than wireless G.
Sure, and in practice it's still faster than most of our uplinks (I'm on 90Mbps VDSL*, and I rarely see friends on "105Mbps" cable actually getting the full speed.)
OTOH, the cost difference on new equipment of gigabit vs. faster ethernet if you can get it at all is trivial.
(I wish that were true for 10GbE, but it's not nearly as expensive as it used to be; the cost of the 2 switches with 2x 10GbE uplinks a piece plus the transceivers was about $350 more than two good-quality switches without the 10GbE uplinks. Which, if you look at that as $87.50 per 10GbE port is really cheap compared to the $400/port we were paying at work a couple of years ago, but still horrifically expensive compared to the $8-10/port for a good basic managed GigE port, let alone the $3-5 a port for unmanaged.)
[* 2x 45Mbps connections; bonded. Per the modem, I'm so close to the DSLAM I could be doing 120Mbps per connection, or 240Mbps total. The cr*p AT&T modem can barely keep up with 90Mbsps now...]
Out of curiosity: what sort of pipes do you need for 10Gb? Does Cat6 even support that?
I'm running fiber; the layout of the addition's foundation made pulling one fiber pair and a backup pair MUCH easier and quicker than running 6 separate Cat6 wires plus a pair of backups, and actually marginally cheaper (for the wiring alone) than 600'-800' of Cat 6. Then I second guessed and ran two Cat6 runs just in case.
10GbE can run on three different types of connection:
* TwinAx (which uses a direct connection to the SFP+ port otherwise used for Fiber)
* Fiber (several kinds; you match the SFP+ transceiver module to the type of fiber and the distance - the standard distances range from about 26M to about 40km, or even longer with manufacturer-specific extensions.)
* Twisted pair (10GBase-T).
I've only used 10GBase-T on very short runs; plain old Cat 6 works fine at the 25' to 10M range. I think Cat 6A (Cat 6 w/ shielding on the individual pairs, I think) is recommended to get the full 55M range that 1000Base-T is supposed to be good to.
On short enough runs, if the cables are in good condition, you can run all the way down to plain old Cat5 for 10GBase-T -- although I've only tried it by accident by using the wrong ~6' patch cable.