Transfer speed from iMac to NAS

[Danmickread]

Hi i have an imac connected wirelessly to an airport express which is acting as an extender for my crappy sky router. i have a buffalo link station connected to the sky router as well and my transfer speeds between the two seem slow. for example a 6gb file from mac to nas says over 3 hours and when i look at network in activity monitor my data sent/sec averages about 600-700KB/s or 0.7MB/s or 5.6Mb/s.
What sort of speeds should i be able to get over wifi or ethernet with my iMac.
i use my nas for backing up data and also copying music to for my sonos system so slow speeds are no good. also when i stream some large movie files from mac to apple tv 2 these are struggeling too and keep buffering.

I am getting 40Mb/s fibre optic broadband with a new hub tomorrow so obviously i want to get the best out of this as well if this means with ethernet cable then thats what ill have to do but the hub only has 3 ethernet ports and i have mac, sonos, nas drive, apple tv, av receiver, and sky that i would all like connected with ethernet how can i do this.

Thanks Dan

 

[marzer]

Hi i have an imac connected wirelessly to an airport express which is acting as an extender for my crappy sky router. i have a buffalo link station connected to the sky router as well and my transfer speeds between the two seem slow. for example a 6gb file from mac to nas says over 3 hours and when i look at network in activity monitor my data sent/sec averages about 600-700KB/s or 0.7MB/s or 5.6Mb/s.
What sort of speeds should i be able to get over wifi or ethernet with my iMac.
i use my nas for backing up data and also copying music to for my sonos system so slow speeds are no good. also when i stream some large movie files from mac to apple tv 2 these are struggeling too and keep buffering.

I am getting 40Mb/s fibre optic broadband with a new hub tomorrow so obviously i want to get the best out of this as well if this means with ethernet cable then thats what ill have to do but the hub only has 3 ethernet ports and i have mac, sonos, nas drive, apple tv, av receiver, and sky that i would all like connected with ethernet how can i do this.

Thanks Dan

If its an intel iMac, it can connect via ethernet at gigabit speeds. And wirelessly at 802.11n speeds.

How is the express extending the sky router? Wirelessly or via cable? What's the wireless link speed bewteen iMac and express? (check using the netowrk utility) Maybe you are experiencing excessive radio or structural interference. Is the slow down something you just started noticing? If so, try power cycling the express. That solves the occassional wireless flakiness for me.

Actually, if its coming tomorrow, I'd wait for the new ISP modem/router and try the whole transfer test thing again after installation is complete before trying too much troubleshooting.

 

[zhenya]

I assume that you are using the Airport Express as a wireless extender, in that there is no Ethernet cable plugged in to it and it merely repeats the signal coming from the router?

What sort of signal is the main router outputting? Is it an 802.11g or N router?

In any case, I'm not surprised by the performance you have if the AE is in fact a wireless repeater. Acting as a repeater cuts the available throughput in half for any devices connected to the repeater. If your Sky router is in G mode, it has a maximum real speed of about 15-20Mbits/second. Half of that is 10Mb/sec, add in a little noise or a less than perfect signal that the AE is repeating, and boom - 5.6Mb/sec transfer rate. Sounds just about right.

Hopefully your new router will improve things, especially if your AE is a late enough model to also be N capable (same for your iMac). Better yet, if you still need the AE as an extender with the new router (you might not), if possible, hardwire it to the router via Ethernet, and then use it not as an extender, but as a separate access point. Use the exact same SSID, encryption type and password on both units and devices will hand-off seamlessly between the two.

 

[Danmickread]

Thanks for all your responses. My AE is acting as an extender so it is connected with a cable and has its own ssid. I'm not sure of the spec of my main router. I have the new hub already just gotta wait for them to install the modem tomorrow. So I done some more tests earlier.
When I connected my mac with Ethernet the transfer rates went up from .7 MB/s to over 7MB/s or over 50Mb/s. much better. But when I look in the network utility it says my mac is connected at 100Mb/s so realistically what's the maximum speed I should be able to get over Ethernet with 100Mb/s connection. And shouldn't my intel mac be able to connect at 1000Mb/s or is this dependant on hub.
I connected the new sky hub up and plugged in the nas and connected mac wirelessly at 130Mb/s and only got 2.5MB/s transfer rate so better than old sky router but not as good as Ethernet.

 

[zhenya]

When you say Hub, I do you mean Router? Similar but very different devices.

That the AE is connected via Ethernet is a good thing. When you set up your new equipment, might as well set up both wifi networks with the same settings as I described above to simplify things.

When you connected the Mac directly, was that direct to the Sky router or to some other device in between?

At 100Mb Ethernet, the theoretical maximum is just 12.5 MB/s, so not far off your 7MB/s. I would expect 9-10 with protocol overhead.

 

[Danmickread]

When you say Hub, I do you mean Router? Similar but very different devices.
Yes wireless router but sky call it a hub.

That the AE is connected via Ethernet is a good thing. When you set up your new equipment, might as well set up both wifi networks with the same settings as I described above to simplify things.

When you connected the Mac directly, was that direct to the Sky router or to some other device in between?
It was connected via rj45 wall plates connected with cat 5 so effectively direct but over a small distance.

At 100Mb Ethernet, the theoretical maximum is just 12.5 MB/s, so not far off your 7MB/s. I would expect 9-10 with protocol overhead.
So how can I get gigabit connection or increase my 7MB/s to 10MB/s.
Can u get speeds any where close to USB connection as I said before a 6 gig file was gonna take 3 hours on wireless and 15 mins on Ethernet but from mac to USB drive just a few minutes?

Thanks

Dan