Alright guys got a quick and easy question for ya. My Drobo FS caps at 11.2 MegaBytes per second when transferring files from my PC to it through Ethernet. Both my PC and my Drobo FS are connected to an Ethernet port switch that supports 10/100 megabits, the switch is connected to a cable on the wall (Ethernet) which is connected to my router. Now my router can only handle a maximum of 10/100 aswell. Here is the question, if I get a Ethernet port switch to replace the one that I have which supports 10/100/1000, in other words gigabit speeds, would I see an increase in transfer speeds or will the router not allow me to do anything at speeds above 100 megabits IE 11.2 Megabyts I am getting now.
It depends on what connection speed your PC supports. If it has a Gigabit Ethernet network interface card (NIC), then it’s your switch that’s forcing your PC to communicate at 100 Mbit/sec.
Drobo FS supports Gigabit Ethernet, so that one is okay.
The connection between the Gigabit switch and your router will still be 100 Mbit/sec, but as long as you connect your Drobo FS and PC (with Gigabit adapter) to the Gigabit switch, then between your PC and Drobo FS you will have Gigabit performance.
Ethernet is slowed only between path segments, meaning plugging a 100 Mbit/sec device into a Gigabit switch won’t slow the entire network’s performance - just access to/from that particular device.
Wow thanks bhiga, yeah my pc definitely supports gigabit, will go get a switch tomorrow! How much of a transfer speed increase are we looking at here? I mean considering on 100 megabits I get 11.2 megabytes which comes around to 89.6 megabits, with something like gigabit would the transfer rate go up to whatever the HDD itself can handle? 896 megabits comes to around 110 megabytes per second, but I highly doubt the drives on my drobo could handle that write speed.
On a Gigabit network, you should be seeing at double or more of the speed you’re getting now.
Although Drobo FS won’t “max out” the Gigabit bandwidth, the extra headroom is still useful for you PC to use - for example, if you’re downloading a file or watching a streaming video, it won’t “choke” the Drobo FS transfer like you’re probably seeing now.
Oh sweet, alright thanks a ton bhiga! Always helpful 
Edit: Holy crap! went form 11 MB per second to 45-49 MB per second! Wish I had this speed when I was transferring my video collection…all 850GB worth 
Took a total of 18 hours.
Yep, you really want this thing on a gigabit switch that supports jumbo frames – and then make sure that all devices connected (including the FS), have gigabit/jumbo, too!
Interesting… I’ve had my FS hooked to a Gigabit switch from day one and I only see 10-11 MB/sec. I have several PC’s which have GbE adapters and they all get similar speeds talking to the Drobo FS.
Well this is weird, suddenly the speed dropped and now I am averaging at around 25 to 30? whats going on? Could it be that the drobo is doing something that might limit the speed? Like checking files and such?
Edit: Alright I feel like such a moron, I just realized I never actually tested moving something TO the Drobo, the 45-50 was moving something FROM the drobo to the PC. So why is it slower when moving something from the PC to the Drobo?
Write speed is always slower than Read speed. 25-30 MByte/sec sounds good though.
Alright then thanks for the info buddy.