Task manager's networking tab decipher

Hi everyone,

I have a domain network with a server and 4 other computers plus a laptop set up at home. They are all connected to a 3Com 8 port 100 Mbps switch and I also have a DSL/ADSLmodem/8 Port Switch/Access Point all in one device from 3Com that not only shares the internet connection but also serves as my access point for my laptop when I want to go wireless and around the house.

I have recently bought a Western Digital My Book World Edition II NAS drive to help me out with the high level of shared media around the house. The device is directly connected to the switch and has a valid IP from the reserved range on my network even with the possibility of referring the device to DHCP.

The overall through-put of the device even with a Gigabit onboard LAN card is way lower than what it should be when you get down to facts & figures of data transfer so I am trying to see why and most importantly if there is any way to match the speed marketed by the company.

Granted that I have a 100 Mbps switch in place but one should notice that All my computers except for my laptop has a gigabit LAN card and I am soon upgrading to a gigabit network, as soon as my 3Com 8 port switch comes in that is. This particular NAS could also be connected directly to a computer with a LAN card and I have done so with my most powerful computer with a gigabyte LAN card to make sure I get the highest speed reachable but the overall transfer time remains the same with my network performance.

I can copy a single one gigabyte file to the NAS for 3 minutes 53 seconds on the one on one basis and a surprising 3 minutes 35 seconds when the NAS is connected to my 100 Mbps network.

In my quest to solve this annoying and time chewing matter I have noticed that the task manager's networking tab that monitors your traffic and input/output utilization of network goes all the way up to 93 percent when computers on my network communicate. That same chart shows a strange 43 percent utilization when computers on the network want to copy some file on to the NAS drive. The same applies to the one on one scenario where its max 4 percent which would be about the same 43 percent if reverted back to a 100 Mbps LAN card.

Now after all that explanation I have two questions as followed;

1. What does it mean when the network utilization does not reach the 90s and why usually does this happen since I have seen it happen at some other companies that are inter connected with ours and its always been bugging me.

2. Has anybody else ran into the same case scenario and if so, any comments.

Thank you all in advance.