In the past week I upgraded my Windows home server from 2016 to 2019. My server contains two i350 NICS (one onboard my Supermicro X9 motherboard and a separate one installed in PCI slot) for a total of 8 ethernet ports. Currently, six of these ports (3 on each NIC) are connected via Cat6 cables to my hardware switch.
This weekend I was testing some file copy speeds from my HyperV VM's to mapped hard drives and noticed that all 6 active ethernet ports were sharing the file copy. What I mean by this is the file copy task was being spread across the 6 ports since Task Manager-Performance was showing each port using 150-250Mbps of ethernet traffic (see first image below). This was unexpected since I only have a single VMSwitch linked to a single port on one of the NIC's. The other 5 Ethernet ports are not linked to any VMSwitch.
I'm a bit confused by this result as I expected only the single ethernet port attached the VMSwitch to show any activity during the file copy from my VM. Also, since the data is being copied on a VM sitting on a SSD within my server to a mapped SATA drive also within my server (linked via a DELL HBA) the idea of the ethernet ports even showing activity is a bit weird to me as its not like the data is "leaving" the server. It essentially being copied from one drive to another.
Also, I ran a test earlier today where I copied the same file on the server to my laptop via a mapped drive. Interestingly, I saw the same behavior where all 6 ethernet ports were showing a balancing of the network activity (see second image below). In this situation I would again only expect one of the ports on the server to show any activity.
Is this behavior normal for Windows Server or is it something new for Server 2019? I've never tested file copies before so it's possible this was happening in my Server2016 environment?
Test 1
-Copy file from server mapped drive to VM desktop
-Left side RDP shows file copy on the VM, right side RDP shows ethernet port activity on the host 2019 server
- Copy speed of 133 MB/s (1064 Mb/s) is being spread across the 6 ethernet ports
Test 2
-Copy file from server mapped drive to laptop desktop
-Left side RDP shows file copy on laptop, right side RDP shows ethernet port activity on the host 2019 server
-Copy speed of 36.8 MB/s (292 Mb/s) is being spread across the six ethernet ports
This weekend I was testing some file copy speeds from my HyperV VM's to mapped hard drives and noticed that all 6 active ethernet ports were sharing the file copy. What I mean by this is the file copy task was being spread across the 6 ports since Task Manager-Performance was showing each port using 150-250Mbps of ethernet traffic (see first image below). This was unexpected since I only have a single VMSwitch linked to a single port on one of the NIC's. The other 5 Ethernet ports are not linked to any VMSwitch.
I'm a bit confused by this result as I expected only the single ethernet port attached the VMSwitch to show any activity during the file copy from my VM. Also, since the data is being copied on a VM sitting on a SSD within my server to a mapped SATA drive also within my server (linked via a DELL HBA) the idea of the ethernet ports even showing activity is a bit weird to me as its not like the data is "leaving" the server. It essentially being copied from one drive to another.
Also, I ran a test earlier today where I copied the same file on the server to my laptop via a mapped drive. Interestingly, I saw the same behavior where all 6 ethernet ports were showing a balancing of the network activity (see second image below). In this situation I would again only expect one of the ports on the server to show any activity.
Is this behavior normal for Windows Server or is it something new for Server 2019? I've never tested file copies before so it's possible this was happening in my Server2016 environment?
Test 1
-Copy file from server mapped drive to VM desktop
-Left side RDP shows file copy on the VM, right side RDP shows ethernet port activity on the host 2019 server
- Copy speed of 133 MB/s (1064 Mb/s) is being spread across the 6 ethernet ports
Test 2
-Copy file from server mapped drive to laptop desktop
-Left side RDP shows file copy on laptop, right side RDP shows ethernet port activity on the host 2019 server
-Copy speed of 36.8 MB/s (292 Mb/s) is being spread across the six ethernet ports
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