How long does it take to send 100 GB over Gigabit Ethernet? Local LAN speed limits

A 100 GB transfer over Gigabit Ethernet works out to 13 minutes 20 seconds at the full 1000 Mbps peak. That's the typical figure you'll see on a well-tuned home LAN. Modern NICs, a proper switch, and a fast disk at both ends. SMB and NFS add single-digit percentage overhead once the link is warm.

Transfer time

13m 20s

At peak link speed

File size

100 GB

Link speed

1,000 Mbps

Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps)

Configuration

File Size

Connection Speed

Mbps

Estimated Transfer Time

13m 20s

Speed Comparison

USB 2.0

27m 46s

480 Mbps

USB 4 / Thunderbolt 4

20s

40 Gbps

Gigabit Ethernet

13m 20s

1 Gbps

Selected

10 Gigabit Ethernet

1m 20s

10 Gbps

WiFi 5 (ac)

33m 20s

400 Mbps

WiFi 7 (be)

2m 40s

5 Gbps

SATA SSD

3m 1s

4.4 Gbps

NVMe Gen4 SSD

14s

56 Gbps

How this is calculated

Real-world Gigabit sustained throughput lands around 110-115 MB/s, which stretches the transfer to about 14-15 minutes. WiFi on a 5 GHz 80 MHz channel usually hits 40-70% of this in practice despite advertised speeds. For a home NAS to saturate Gigabit, both source and destination disks need to beat ~120 MB/s sustained, which any recent NAS-class drive does easily.

Verdict

13m 20s for 100 GB is Gigabit Ethernet's practical floor. It's the baseline against which 2.5 GbE (5m 20s) and 10 GbE (1m 20s) upgrades should be measured when planning a home or small-office network.