Questions about Ping results

[neteng2323]

I have a location that is complaining about slow read\write times to a local server.  The speed is roughly 35 mbps over a 1 Gig link.  When I ping this server from the Layer 3 switch (3580) it is connected to I get 3% packet loss consistently.  In fact, when I ping from any Cisco device switch or router, local to that server, I get 3% packet loss.  

I've tried pinging from different source addresses and same result. Pinging other addresses from the switch or router in the same subnet as the server look fine.  I've found 3 addresses (servers) exhibiting the same result.  The kicker, when I ping these addresses from a windows machine, or the palo alto FW onsite I see no packet loss.  

When I ping over a WAN link from my desktop, I get no packet loss.  I've tried using longer and shorter timeouts to see but results don't change. 

[Cisco Freak · Accepted solution]

There will be ICMP rate-limiting at the destination server.

Cisco devices send ICMP echo packet more faster than windows machines hence it will be dropped at the destination.

CF

[neteng2323]

I see, and I was starting to suspect that.  I don't have access to this Netapp filer so I can't do any investigation on that box.  I don't see any interface errors, or retransmissions via a Wireshark trace. 

[JDGranger]

I suspecting server issue here if you have already reviewed the Wireshark capture and found nothing. Not sure if the location is remote or not but try to do some investigating locally. Also I want to confirm what the post above states as far as Cisco devices sending pings much faster than regular devices.

PS. I had this same issue in the past and I hard coded the port for the speed and had them reboot and never had the same issue again.

[devils_advocate]

You could use something like iperf to check the throughput to the server.

Also, have you checked the switchport for errors or a speed/duplex mismatch?

Is it a physical server or virtual?