If you want to see how much traffic is passing through your network port there’s a handy tool called vnstat which will tally the amount of data passing through. You can install it with:
sudo apt-get install vnstat
It will usually add the databases and network ports automatically like so:
If it doesn’t and gives you an error you can create the database(s) with:
sudo vnstat -u -i eth0
If you have multiple network cards/ports you can add those in, too:
vnstat -u -i eth1
vnstat -u -i eth2
…etc
If it couldn’t create the databases you can start it with:
sudo /etc/init.d/vnstat start
If you need to change the maximum bandwidth from 100Mb you can edit the file:
/etc/vnstat.conf
Scroll down until you see the following:
# maximum bandwidth (Mbit) for all interfaces, 0 = disable feature
# (unless interface specific limit is given)
MaxBandwidth 100
and make MaxBandwidth the figure you require (e.g. 1000). If you make a change restart vnstat with:
/etc/init.d/vnstat restart
You can now see how much traffic has come through the NIC since vnstat started recording – at first it probably won’t be much (if any), but as it adds up you can check it with:
vnstat
The output should look like:
You can watch how much traffic is flowing through in real-time by running:
vnstat -i eth0 -l
This will give you a screen showing you the current traffic:
You can end this with CTRL+C, which shows you a summary screen:
You can get an hourly summary with:
vnstat -i eth0 -h
Daily summary with:
vnstat -i eth0 -d
Monthly summary with:
vnstat -i eth0 -m
This is a really handy way of keeping track of your network traffic – whether it’s out of curiosity, wanting to know how much stress your network is under or looking for a bottleneck this can be quite a valuable tool.
Intel’s network cards are popular due to their speed and reliability, which is often greater than the onboard chips in devices/motherboards. The Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Network Adapter is a PCI-E x1 add-in card with a single gigabit port, usually selling for around $30AU. It is low-profile and should come with a low-profile bracket – handy for thin HTPCs or servers – and is passively cooled as you would expect. It auto-negotiates – so you don’t need to worry about crossover cables – and is PCI-E v.1.1, which supplies more than enough bandwidth for a single gigabit port and should work fine in V2 and V3 slots. It is also supposed to be compatible with x1, x4, x8 and x16 slots. The network controller is Intel’s 82574L – a design released in 2008, with an expected discontinuance of 2018 – Intel certainly expect to get a lot of mileage out of that chip!
The 82574L has a TDP of below a single watt, so this is going to be quite a power-efficient add-in card. Intel state that the typical power consumption is in the range of 1.9W for the entire card. Driver support is excellent across virtually all operating systems – it’s plug and play with many Linux distros and works perfectly well with the provided drivers in Windows machines. It also has support for teaming/bonding/link aggregation and 9K jumbo frames. Physically the card is 11.92cm long and 5.53cm wide.
In our tests the card managed an impressive average of approx. 950Mbit/s – very close to the theoretical maximum throughput of a gigabit line.
If you are in the market for a reliable, fast PCI-Express network card and only need a single port this card is well worth a look – between the features, low power usage, low profile option and driver support it’s an excellent buy for the price. 
