Wirelessly transfering large media files over home network

[Bodhi395]

I have a mac mini hooked up to my tv that I've been using as a media center and I also have an original macbook. My issue is alot of times I like to download tv shows from the internet to my macbook and then I need a fast way to transfer them to my mac mini.

Right now I use file sharing over my home wireless network and copy the files over to the mini's external hard drive, but it takes a LONG time, even though I have a top of the line router. If I have 2 or 3 GB's of files it can take well over an hour.

I'm wondering if there is a faster way to wirelessly file share or a certain set up one of you use that allows for fast wireless file sharing between computers?

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you checked, the router and the Macs have wireless-N (802.11-n) capabilities?

Mac OS X > System Profiler > Network > Airport > Supported PHY Modes

ignore the arrows

Router - use a www search engine to look for your router model.


With wireless-N you should get speeds of about 7MB/s, so 2.5GB should take 6 to 7 minutes.

 

[sapporobaby]

I have a mac mini hooked up to my tv that I've been using as a media center and I also have an original macbook. My issue is alot of times I like to download tv shows from the internet to my macbook and then I need a fast way to transfer them to my mac mini.

Right now I use file sharing over my home wireless network and copy the files over to the mini's external hard drive, but it takes a LONG time, even though I have a top of the line router. If I have 2 or 3 GB's of files it can take well over an hour.

I'm wondering if there is a faster way to wirelessly file share or a certain set up one of you use that allows for fast wireless file sharing between computers?

I have a similar set up. What I've done is to no longer download TV shows or movies via my MacBook Pro. I use iTunes on the Mac Mini as this serves as my media center anyway. So, if I want to watch a movie on my MacBook Pro, I either stream it or copy it from my Mac Mini.

Just a thought.

 

[Bodhi395]

Have you checked, the router and the Macs have wireless-N (802.11-n) capabilities?

Mac OS X > System Profiler > Network > Airport > Supported PHY Modes

ignore the arrows

Router - use a www search engine to look for your router model.


With wireless-N you should get speeds of about 7MB/s, so 2.5GB should take 6 to 7 minutes.

I know my router is wireless-N, but neither of my macs are, they are both wireless-g. How fast should it go using wireless-g?

Also, would hooking my mac mini directly into the router using an ethernet cable increase the speed of transfering from it to the macbook which would still be connected wirelessly?

 

[sapporobaby]

I know my router is wireless-N, but neither of my macs are, they are both wireless-g. How fast should it go using wireless-g?

Also, would hooking my mac mini directly into the router using an ethernet cable increase the speed of transfering from it to the macbook which would still be connected wirelessly?

Only 54 mgs dude. Not really fast when you want to transfer very large files. Your wifi set gear is too slow. If possible connect your Mac Mini to your router via Ethernet as this is a faster connection. I have 200 MBps at home, and connect my Mac Mini to my Airport Extreme via CAT6 cable. The rest of my network is on 5 Ghz N. I have a connection at 300 Mbit/s. I can stream anything and the file transfers are not too slow.

 

[spinnerlys]

I know my router is wireless-N, but neither of my macs are, they are both wireless-g. How fast should it go using wireless-g?

Also, would hooking my mac mini directly into the router using an ethernet cable increase the speed of transfering from it to the macbook which would still be connected wirelessly?

No, connecting ono device wirelessly will not speed up the transfer, unless one Mac has 802.11 g, connected via wire, and the other has 802.11, connected wirelessly.

With 802.11 g you may get transfer speeds of up to 2MB/s.

 

[dbwie]

You could carry the laptop over to the Mini, connect the two with an ethernet cable, transfer the files over a wired connection, and when you are done turn off file sharing. This should go faster than wireless.