Are you frustrated that your network isn’t running as fast as you think it should? The cause could be as simple as an old Ethernet cable or as complex as the way your NAS is set up. Here are some common problems you could run into with network speed and how to fix them.
Your networking cables could be outdated
CAT5 cables are so 2001
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When was the last time you checked your Ethernet cables? Whether you use in-wall cabling or just have a drawer of cords you pull from, there’s a small chance that you could still have some older Ethernet cables in there.
A few years ago, I went through my Ethernet cable drawer and made sure to get rid of all CAT5 cables. These cables can support gigabit speeds, but they’re not reliable for faster networking than 100Mb/s.
If you’re using a CAT5 cable (or even CAT5e cable in some instances) to connect your NAS, computer or even switch to your network, there’s a chance that your cabling could be the limiting factor in why your network isn’t running at full speed.
You might have a slower switch in your setup
When was the last time you checked for a rogue 10/100 switch?
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While much less likely than a rogue old cable, there’s a chance you might have an older 10/100 switch in your network setup. I have definitely been to churches and businesses that had an old 10/100 switch in their setup. Oftentimes, these switches are in edge locations, like an attic running some PoE cameras, or maybe were in a drawer and pulled out because another switch died.
Using a 10/100 switch in any networking setup will immediately slow down all devices downstream from that switch. There is zero reason to still use a 10/100 switch in 2026, and it could be the single thing bottlenecking your entire network.
It’s technically possible to have a 10/100 switch in a networking setup and then another gigabit switch downstream of it, and still receive gigabit on devices talking through that secondary switch. However, it’s just best to replace that 10/100 switch with a gigabit (or faster) switch to ensure it doesn’t cause any problems.
Your computer might not have a fast enough networking card
Gigabit network cards are great for everything but multi-gig networking.
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Gigabit network cards are the industry standard at this point. You’d be hard-pressed to find a modern computer with a 10/100 card in it. However, not every machine ships with a multi-gig networking port. My desktop happens to have a 2.5Gb/s Ethernet port on it, but the computers at our church, even new ones, are still limited to gigabit speeds.
If you’ve deployed a multi-gig network in your house, or maybe purchased a new NAS, and can’t transfer faster than gigabit, it’s likely a network card somewhere in the stack. It could be your computer or the NAS, but either one might be limited to just standard gigabit networking.
On a new NAS that I just got, it has two Ethernet ports—one at gigabit speed, one at 2.5Gb/s speed. Even though the NAS itself is capable of 2.5Gb/s networking, if I plug into the gigabit port on accident, I’ll be limited in the speed I can achieve on the NAS.
Faster network cards (either PCIe or USB) are actually rather affordable. I picked up a 2.5Gb/s Ethernet PCIe card for my older servers that didn’t have multi-gig networking natively for around $20 each as an Amazon Warehouse Deal. For my MacBook, which doesn’t have 2.5Gb/s Ethernet either, I picked up a USB-C adapter for about $30.
The storage system you’re transferring files to might not be fast enough
Your old NAS might be slowing you down.
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Depending on the hard drives you’re using, the hardware within your NAS, or the way your NAS is set up, your storage server could be the bottleneck in your networking stack.
For instance, running just two slower hard drives in RAID1 in your NAS, you’re only realistically going to achieve around 100MB/s transfer speeds. This can fully saturate a gigabit connection, but if you’re running multi-gig (like 2.5Gb/s), then you’ll be underwhelmed by the performance.
This fix isn’t quite as easy as others on this list. However, one thing you can typically do in most NAS setups is configure a SSD cache in front of the hard drives. This transfers your files to the SSD first, and then lets the NAS offload the files from the SSD to the hard drive array at a later time. This is how I have my Unraid system setup and it works fantastically.
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Your internet plan could be the bottleneck
A 300Mb/s connection can’t fully saturate a 1Gb/s network.
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A good friend of mine had two very different networks in his house: a 2.5Gb/s internal network, and a 40Mb/s download speed (with a 4Mb/s upload speed) from his ISP. Internally, he could move files lightning-fast. Externally? Things were very slow.
You could be facing the same problem with your setup. If you have a 300Mb/s ISP connection, you simply cannot saturate your internal connection. Your computer might have 2.5Gb/s networking and be hooked up to a 2.5Gb/s switch, but you’re still only going to download games from Steam at 300Mb/s at most.
The only fix to this is simply to upgrade your network speed. Personally, I have a gigabit plan from AT&T Fiber, even though I have a 2.5Gb/s internal network. I’d love to upgrade to a faster internet plan, but they’re just simply too expensive and not fully worth it for me yet. So, I’m okay with limiting my external network speed while having a faster internal network.
These tips apply to your network, no matter what speed it is internally. However, if you’re still running your homelab at gigabit, it’s time to upgrade. Make 2026 the year that you finally move from gigabit to multi-gig speeds for your homelab.
I recently moved my network to 2.5Gb/s, which was an affordable but sizable upgrade from normal gigabit speeds. My transfer rates are now 2.5x faster, and it cost me less than $100 all-in for the upgrade.
