How do I evaluate the performance of a LAN setup?

There are a number of ways a person can evaluate the performance of a LAN. This involves transferring large amounts of data while at the same time using special tools (programs) that track the network activity and bandwidth utilization.

A simple search on the popular Download.com and Tucows.com sites will reveal a number of applications that will help you determine how well the network is performing.

On another note, you should also consider running a network sniffer to view any broadcast and multicast packets that might be flooding the network. These tend to gobble up the bandwidth and reduce your performance if they are out of control. A misconfigured or faulty device might be constantly flooding the network with garbage, which can cause other problems later on.

As you can see, you need to view the network from different perspectives in order to get a good idea on how well it is performing, and while this is most times a time consuming process, it will certainly save you a lot of time in the long run!