Creating a LAN in your home is relatively easy these days. But when it comes to locating a transfer problem or checking whether both software and hardware are working correctly, we're facing a completely different matter. One of the first things a user with a freshly built LAN will want to measure is the transfer speed between two computers, and while you can resort to the classic file copy and trust the numbers Windows throws at you, LAN Speed Test will help you get much clearer numbers.
During the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity to install several wireless networks in homes where a netbook was purchased, or where running the necessary cables becomes too complicated. Even so, whether it's a LAN or a Wireless LAN, the harmony between network cards, cables (where needed), the router, and possible switches must be maintained at all times. A poorly configured card or one with a driver problem can turn a potential gigabit network into a simple LAN with a peak transfer of ten megabits, a speed we used to achieve with my friends when we played Doom 2 over DOS using coaxial cable and RF terminals.
If doubt is eating at you and you want to know if the communication within your network is at its maximum possible speed, then you should give this small utility called LAN Speed Test a try. Simply have a shared folder on the network with full read and write access. The program will ask you to indicate the path to that folder, and then it will ask for the size of the file it will generate for the measurement. Files between 50 and 100 megabytes are among the most logical transfers, but you can try smaller or larger values if necessary.
Once you have the result, you can print it if you need a physical copy of the results. Since it's a file transfer, you don't need to open any special port or anything like that. In fact, LAN Speed Test doesn't even have an installer, as it only takes up 17MB, an ideal size to carry on a USB stick or similar device. There are other applications that can perform similar measurements, but LAN Speed Test is light, leaves no junk behind, and does its job.
If the numbers are not what they should be, then you'll know in advance that something is wrong with your network, and you'll need to fix it. Either way, be patient. Some limitations are natural to the hardware, and no optimization will help in those cases, such as an old switch that only works at ten megabits.
