Transferring file over LAN/Wifi from Mac to Lappy...VERY slow speeds

Marcel

Marcel

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Marcel
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I have some 8 gig files I would like to transfer over to my laptop.

I've enabled file sharing on the Mac, SMB enabled. I can browse the mac drives / folders on the laptop.

However, copying files over is painfully slow. I get avg about 300k/sec transfer speed, sometimes up to 500k/sec.
If I plug the lan cable from the router, (mac still on wifi), then it goes up to 1mb, but that's it.

Surely it should be faster than this? I can download from websites quicker :lol:

I've disabled IPv6 on both machines.
There were one or two other things I did last night that google results told me might help...they didn't.

Any guru's out there? Cowasaki? Help! :p
 
Are you being restricted by the read/write speeds of the slowest drive? It's just a guess, I was transferring files to a NAS via a cable the other day and that was painfully slow too, much slower than expected but then I know the square-root of squat when it comes to computers.
 
I've tried to transfer files over WiFi from one mac to another. Boy talk about watching paint dry.......

Even if you connect one computer via Ethernet, you are still using the WiFi to transmit to the mac. back to the paint drying scenario

The quickest way I found was to use a network crossover cable connected directly to the Ethernet port of each computer. It's about 10 times quicker, but then it is a gigabit card in both machines. If your LAN is only 100K then it will be slow, or if one machine has a slow Ethernet connection.
 
Chappers said:
I've tried to transfer files over WiFi from one mac to another. Boy talk about watching paint dry.......

Even if you connect one computer via Ethernet, you are still using the WiFi to transmit to the mac. back to the paint drying scenario

The quickest way I found was to use a network crossover cable connected directly to the Ethernet port of each computer. It's about 10 times quicker, but then it is a gigabit card in both machines. If your LAN is only 100K then it will be slow, or if one machine has a slow Ethernet connection.
Click to expand...

even a 100mbps LAN is faster and more reliable than wifi in my opinion.. unfortunately very few routers offer 1000mbps but then you can always bypass the router with a switch :)
 
You presumably have some memory cards for your camera. If you have a 16GB one, copy file onto card from mac, remove card. Walk to laptop. Insert card. Copy file from card. Easy :)

Or use a network crossover cable direct between the two machines (fastest, if you have a cable).

Wifi = the worst networking solution. Even 10base2 coax was better with those terminators and the hours spent chasing around trying to find the loose connector when the whole network went down. Even token ring was better and that was bloody awful!
 
onomatopoeia said:
Wifi = the worst networking solution. Even 10base2 coax was better with those terminators and the hours spent chasing around trying to find the loose connector when the whole network went down. Even token ring was better and that was bloody awful!
Click to expand...

token ring was the best thing ever.. we used to crash the novell servers at college by unterminating a connector.. home time! :lol:
 
I understand wifi has its limitations, but this is literally a couple of hundred k/sec speeds.

Using the same machine, connected to my router/internet via wifi, i can get 3 or 4 times that.

Therefore it *has* to be a configuration issue somewhere.
 
Marcel said:
I understand wifi has its limitations, but this is literally a couple of hundred k/sec speeds.

Using the same machine, connected to my router/internet via wifi, i can get 3 or 4 times that.

Therefore it *has* to be a configuration issue somewhere.
Click to expand...

Internet traffic is relatively small bursts compared to file transfer
 
What router is it ? is it WiFi B? G? or N ? are you using static or DHCP ip addressing ?

Have you tried disabling AntiVirus ? and firewalls ?

Connection speed will only ever work at the speed of the slowest device.
 
onomatopoeia said:
You presumably have some memory cards for your camera. If you have a 16GB one, copy file onto card from mac, remove card. Walk to laptop. Insert card. Copy file from card. Easy :)

Or use a network crossover cable direct between the two machines (fastest, if you have a cable).

Wifi = the worst networking solution. Even 10base2 coax was better with those terminators and the hours spent chasing around trying to find the loose connector when the whole network went down. Even token ring was better and that was bloody awful!
Click to expand...


Most modern network adapters don't even need a crossover ethernet cable... any cat5 (or better) cable will do and one end will automatically switch channels.

Did this between my old and new laptop a couple of days ago and transferred 60Gb of stuff over in just a couple of hours.
 
I'll give that a whirl then. Cheers!
 
amnesia said:
Most modern network adapters don't even need a crossover ethernet cable... any cat5 (or better) cable will do and one end will automatically switch channels.

Did this between my old and new laptop a couple of days ago and transferred 60Gb of stuff over in just a couple of hours.
Click to expand...

Good point, I started on the good old NE2000 / RTL8029 chipset which definitely was not auto sensing and still tend to think that way.
 
Remembering a BNC end piece.... *shudder*
Although they were bloomin addictive to play with....on, off, twist on, twist off :p
 
Marcel said:
Remembering a BNC end piece.... *shudder*
Click to expand...

As I referred to in my post further up the topic. Whole network goes down and it's because some prat is playing with the terminator
:banghead:
 
Did you ever get to the bottom of this marcel? I've just built a new PC so I'm trying to transfer all of my photos from my NAS (which is downstairs connected to the router) onto the internal harddisk via wifi and like you I'm only getting around 300kb/sec transfer speed.
 
Check to see what your AV is doing. Had the same issue last year when trying to transfer an iTunes library. My AV was checking every file as it was set to scan new files.
 
Nope. It's from PC > Mac, so no AV on the incoming machine.
Edit, actually I'm lying, it was the other way round. BUt I did try it from PC > Mac too and it was the same.

I never gave it another whirl, I'll see if I can dig out an ethernet cable and try it today.
 
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