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I have master computer and two render nodes connected to the master via ethernet using a switch.
Master has two ethernet ports which are connected to this switch.
There is a way to make Octane send data to the slaves using both ethernet ports, each dedicated to each of the slaves.
I was trying to speed this transfer for months now without success until a friend helped me.
Be aware that transfers to the nodes can last for a long time, even almost 2 minutes if there is a lot of data and especially because
by default Octane sends data using only one ethernet port so it has to send data to one slave and then the same data to the second one.
I tried with windows teaming, ethernet bridging, routing tables, link aggregation in the switch without any success.
The trick is in the Octane deamons. You shouldn't use the automatic node setup but you should write your own batch scripts
in which you can configure each node to use different ethernet ports. This way we managed to double the transfer speeds to the nodes
in the case of one master and two nodes configurations, if someone needs this let me know.

I only have one slave. I thought I could get a speed gain by changing my 100Mbit switch to a Gigabit switch with faster cables. But I didn't notice a speed gain. Haven't bothered figuring out why yet.

There should be a gain in speed. Your workstation probably has 1.0 Gbps ethernet card which should now communicate with the slave via this switch at roughly 112 MB/s where there was only 12MB/s before. This is only noticeable on large scenes while they are loading to the GPU or when there are large changes in geometry between successive frames. You can use task manager to monitor network traffic and see what speeds you've got and how long it takes.