To find the number of packets per second you can move through your
Ethernet, do a quick and dirty test. Try "cp"ing or "cat"ing some files to
and/or from an NFS file server. A rough test of "cp" (a 554181-byte file)
with a 1K packet size took about 10 seconds (about 55K/sec).
roughly, 550,000 bytes
------------- = 550K in 10 seconds = 55K/sec
1,000 bytes per K
Some factors that might affect this number are network traffic, packet
size, the load of the system, NMBUFS (buffers for networking), and so on.
Article Change History:
23 Aug 1994 - Reviewed and updated.
25 Jun 1993 - Revised for clarity.
29 Mar 1989 - Reviewed for technical accuracy.