Very slow Wifi connection speed to Synology NAS

[Z28McCrory]

I've had my Synology 1817 for about 2 years, and have never been able to figure out why the speed is so slow over Wifi. I'm trying to trouble shoot it finally, so that I can have a usable connection speed to it through my MacBook Pro. I live in a modest size apartment, and the Wifi signal is great in all room.

My network:

Room 1: Router (Asus RT-AC3100), Cable Modem (connected via ethernet cable to router)
Room 2: Media Bridge (Asus RT-A68P), Synology NAS (connected via ethernet cable to bridge)

My office is Room 2. I have my Mac Pro connected directly to the Synology NAS with a 10Gb ethernet connection, and the performance it great (300-500 MB/sec read and write). I also have the Mac Pro connected to the Media Bridge with an ethernet cable, so that there's only one main wifi link happening between room 1 and 2 (to avoid the Mac Pro needing to use Wifi and eating into the signal bandwidth)

Any time I try to connect to the Synology via WiFi with my laptop, the connection speed is terrible. Its been as slow as 1.5 MB/sec, and never any faster than about 3-4 MB/sec.

The Router and the Media Bridge show a strong connection between eachother (the link rate shows 1300 Mbit in the router utility). The MacBook Pro shows a strong connection to the Wifi network (between 975-1100 Mbit depending on where its at in the apartment).

My internet connection is strong over wifi with no issues (around 225 Mbit download), and stays the same whether I'm plugged directly into the router or over wifi. Its nuts, but I can download things from the internet (over Wifi) on my laptop at speed 5-10x faster than what I can download them from my NAS locally.

Any ideas? This has drove me crazy for a couple years, and I would love to finally get it figured out. Its made my NAS basically unusable for anything except the computer I have plugged directly into it with an ethernet cable.

 

[cmaier]

I've had my Synology 1817 for about 2 years, and have never been able to figure out why the speed is so slow over Wifi. I'm trying to trouble shoot it finally, so that I can have a usable connection speed to it through my MacBook Pro. I live in a modest size apartment, and the Wifi signal is great in all room.

My network:

Room 1: Router (Asus RT-AC3100), Cable Modem (connected via ethernet cable to router)
Room 2: Media Bridge (Asus RT-A68P), Synology NAS (connected via ethernet cable to bridge)

My office is Room 2. I have my Mac Pro connected directly to the Synology NAS with a 10Gb ethernet connection, and the performance it great (300-500 MB/sec read and write). I also have the Mac Pro connected to the Media Bridge with an ethernet cable, so that there's only one main wifi link happening between room 1 and 2 (to avoid the Mac Pro needing to use Wifi and eating into the signal bandwidth)

Any time I try to connect to the Synology via WiFi with my laptop, the connection speed is terrible. Its been as slow as 1.5 MB/sec, and never any faster than about 3-4 MB/sec.

The Router and the Media Bridge show a strong connection between eachother (the link rate shows 1300 Mbit in the router utility). The MacBook Pro shows a strong connection to the Wifi network (between 975-1100 Mbit depending on where its at in the apartment).

My internet connection is strong over wifi with no issues (around 225 Mbit download), and stays the same whether I'm plugged directly into the router or over wifi. Its nuts, but I can download things from the internet (over Wifi) on my laptop at speed 5-10x faster than what I can download them from my NAS locally.

Any ideas? This has drove me crazy for a couple years, and I would love to finally get it figured out. Its made my NAS basically unusable for anything except the computer I have plugged directly into it with an ethernet cable.

I have a setup with two Synology 3612xs’s, and I’ve optimized my network topology over the course of 8 years or so to accomodate thEm.

Unfortunately, I think the issue is that while you have a good link speed to the media bridge, the media bridge is just not optimized to handle that kind of traffic. Do you have anything else attached to the media bridge as well?

 

[Z28McCrory]

I have a setup with two Synology 3612xs’s, and I’ve optimized my network topology over the course of 8 years or so to accomodate thEm.

Unfortunately, I think the issue is that while you have a good link speed to the media bridge, the media bridge is just not optimized to handle that kind of traffic. Do you have anything else attached to the media bridge as well?

The Mac Pro is also plugged into the media bridge. I set it up this way because I assumed it would be best to let the media bridge connect with the router via WiFi instead of the Mac Pro also trying to use WiFi (plus the media bridge is about 6 ft off the ground, and the MacPro is on the floor...basically right next to the media bridge).

Would upgrading the Media Bridge give me any benefit? I used it, because it was my previous router, and the same brand as my new one (so easy to setup as a media bridge). I’m not opposed to upgrading components. The only limitation is that I can’t physically run an Ethernet cable between rooms. Ultimately I’d be very happy with something like 40-50 MB/sec over WiFi. That would allow me to edit photo projects n such from the NAS on my laptop.

 

[cmaier]

The Mac Pro is also plugged into the media bridge. I set it up this way because I assumed it would be best to let the media bridge connect with the router via WiFi instead of the Mac Pro also trying to use WiFi (plus the media bridge is about 6 ft off the ground, and the MacPro is on the floor...basically right next to the media bridge).

Would upgrading the Media Bridge give me any benefit? I used it, because it was my previous router, and the same brand as my new one (so easy to setup as a media bridge). I’m not opposed to upgrading components. The only limitation is that I can’t physically run an Ethernet cable between rooms. Ultimately I’d be very happy with something like 40-50 MB/sec over WiFi. That would allow me to edit photo projects n such from the NAS on my laptop.

Have you considered power line networking to bridge the two rooms?

As for the media bridge, I can’t know for sure. I had pretty good success with apple’s airports in my house, but when they stopped supporting them I moved to AMPLIFI. That worked pretty well for awhile, then A firmware update caused problems similar to what you see. I now use synology routers (a collection where some are wired together and others wirelessly bridge) and that’s working fine.

 

[Z28McCrory]

I hadn’t considered power line networking, but maybe I should.

With your Synology routers, what sort of performance have you been able to get over WiFi to your NAS? I considered switching over to Synology, but wanted to see if I was simply overlooking something on my existing setup. My main Asus 3100 router is about the same price range as the Synology equivalent, so I had hoped they were comparable in performance.

 

[cmaier]

I hadn’t considered power line networking, but maybe I should.

With your Synology routers, what sort of performance have you been able to get over WiFi to your NAS? I considered switching over to Synology, but wanted to see if I was simply overlooking something on my existing setup. My main Asus 3100 router is about the same price range as the Synology equivalent, so I had hoped they were comparable in performance.

I haven’t measured the performance, but it’s fast enough that I haven’t needed to measure the performance.

 

[Z28McCrory]

I haven’t measured the performance, but it’s fast enough that I haven’t needed to measure the performance.

If you get a chance, I’d appreciate if you could do a speed test with something like Black Magic Disk Speed test over WiFi.

 

[satcomer]

On your Mac hold down the ‘Option’ key while clicking the Finder menus Wi-Fi symbol to get the conduction speed to SSID!

 

[Z28McCrory]

I ended up upgrading from my 2013 15” rMBP to a new 16” MacBook Pro (for many reasons beyond this simple connection issue).

I changed absolutely nothing on my network, and this new 16” MacBook Pro is able to transfer files from the Synology NAS at 10-20x the speed of my old MacBook Pro. I have no idea why... both show the same connection speed from the Router (1100-1300 Mbps), but instead of 3-4 MB/sec transfer speed I’m getting 30-60 MB/sec depending on how close I am to the router.

It’s still a mystery what was wrong before, but with the new MBP the speeds are absolutely fine for what I need.

 

[hobowankenobi]

On your Mac hold down the ‘Option’ key while clicking the Finder menus Wi-Fi symbol to get the conduction speed to SSID!

Nice tip. Thanks!