In order to get good data transfer rates from PNCC, your receiving machine(s) must have:
- A reliable network connection that does not experience errors or dropped packets
- A fast-wired network interface (10 gigabit/second is recommended). Do not use wireless for these data transfers!
- Tuning of the operating system (Linux, Windows, or MacOS) that dedicates extra system memory to data transfer
- Fast disk or SSD storage (capable of at least 100 megabyte/second) that is large enough to hold your data set(s)
The farther you are from the Pacific Northwest in the United States, the more important #1, #2, and #3 are. See here for instructions on #3.
Background info: At long distances, many megabytes of data can be “in the wire” between computers that are far apart even when taking the speed of light in a cable into account. The computers at either end must be tuned to dedicate at least a “cable full” of their memory to each active data transfer, or they will drop data that will then have to be re-sent. This problem is noticeable at distances of about 500 miles and can slow down transfers by a factor of 1,000 on cross-country connections. Almost no computer is tuned for this “out of the box,” but fortunately tuning guidelines are available here.