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Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

godsell4
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Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Subject says it all really.
I have just bought a NAS, and connected it by wire to one of the ports on my Netgear DG834Gv2 router/modem.
I have a WinXP laptop and an iMac, when connected by wire to the router, both of these machines read/write files off the NAS at a healthy speed.
If I connect the laptop by wireless, the connection is very very slow, and the NAS gets unhappy and sometimes needs a reset. Sad The DG834V2 is set to allow on 802.11b connections, so no mixed .11b and .11g connections are going on.
Thought anyone?
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
13 REPLIES 13
dvorak
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Well you wired LAN will be running at 100Mbps and your wireless is only 54Mbps at the maximum - so that is probably most of your reason there.
Wireless is just pretty poor for copying large amounts of data in my experience.
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godsell4
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Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?


Now it is becoming unreliable over the wired LAN too. Sad
Any thoughts are appreciated.
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
Not applicable

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Quote from: adiewoo
Well you wired LAN will be running at 100Mbps and your wireless is only 54Mbps at the maximum - so that is probably most of your reason there.

Don't believe the marketing speak!

The wired LAN will operate at 100Mbps full duplex when connected to the Netgear DG834Gv2 (which is a network switch rather than a hub).
The wireless LAN connection will operate at 54Mbps half duplex. (Half duplex means that transmission can only take place in one direction at a time.)
So, on a wired connection, you can receive IP packets at a 100Mbps rate, and confirm that you have received them, and transmit any other info at the same time - without interrupting the stream of incoming packets. (This is why 10/100mbps networks require two pairs of cable to operate - one to send on, one to receive on.)
The wireless acts in a way similar to a single pair of cables, but at a lower speed. Because its wireless there are also some other overheads which have to be transmitted to maintain the link which reduce the effective speed.
Also, because transmission can only occur in one direction at a time, the devices have to buffer the packets they want to send out, which also impacts performance.
The other thing to consider is wireless interferance. The 2.GHz spectrum used by these devices is also used for almost anything that operates wirelessly these days. Cordless phones, garage controllers, AV senders, cordless speaker systems, some games console controllers, and so on... Your devices may well be having to contend with other devices using the medium.
Further consideration should be given to distance between the devices. As distance increases, so effective throughput decreases.
And finally - I have experienced problems with the routing tables in the DG834GTv2 in the past. A reboot of the router tends to fix it, alternatively issuing IP addresses manually appears to fix the issue too.

What kind of NAS is it?
I've heard of people getting less than satisfactory results from the buffalo terastation recently - to the point where a few colleagues have returned them.
godsell4
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Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Thanks.
The NAS is one of these here, it was the buily in p2p client that attracted me. I have gone for a 500GB version.
Indeed, I have not ruled out the router being the cause of these problems, have not actually rebooted the router yet, but do plan to.
Given where I live I in the sticks, there is not going to me much other 2.4GHz traffic causing a problem. To be clear Wifi is not quite half-duplex, rather each link is half of the quoted speed, so .11g gives 54/2Mb in each direction and those clever marketing folks add those two numbers together to give a maximum throughput number. Sad
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
Not applicable

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Hehe, thats what I was starting to say when I typed the first sentence - dunno how I missed the salient point of my post off it!
Thanks for clarifying to those who aren't telepathic though. Shocked
For the NAS:
Might be worth adding a fixed IP for it if possible if you haven't already.
samuria
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Registered: ‎13-04-2007

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Copying any large files will bee slowed by AV as it will be scanned as its sent and possibly as its recieved. If you have last time file accessed on as well that wont help. Using dos is normally quicker
godsell4
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Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Using the same laptop at work, file transfer over wireless is much quicker than this. So do not think it is AV on the laptop doing this.
It could be the router though ... need to go give that a kick now.
Also, although the NAS is set for DHCP, the router is told to always give the NAS the same address each time. Are these equivalent as far as the router is concerned?
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
godsell4
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Have given up with this now, was tinkering with this till 01:25 this morning and it is slow and unreliable. Sad Now sending it back.
Also, a word of warning to Mac users thinking about getting a NAS ... make sure the NAS has AFP otherwise all sorts of annoying things happen, like filename restrictions, which you will almost definately hit if you are trying to put our iPhoto libraries on the NAS ... like I am! SAMBA is not the panacea it is thought to be.
Looks like only the recent Buffalo Linstation Mini and Netgear ReadyNAS systems are the best options, but they are not cheap. Sad
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
godsell4
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?


Think I am about to go for a Thecus N299 NAS (details here) it is not cheap, but it does do RAID as well so is a real step up from the Tsunami NAS I tried.
Looks like there are not so many of these in the UK, very few on eBay, or does that mean they are all living with happy owners? Smiley
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
dvorak
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Certainly gets pretty good write ups on a few review sites.
Looks to be a nice box.
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godsell4
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Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

Well some progress this evening.
After reading reviews on www.smallnetbuilder.net it seems there were at least 3 devices that would easily meet my needs, my needs are undemanding to warrent spending +£300 on this, so have just got a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo off eBay for £150, should have it home by the end of the week.
Lots of geeks and tweaks for this too @ http://www.readynas.com/forum/index.php.
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
godsell4
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?


Right, I have the ReadyNAS Duo (RND) installed and running.
I have my iMac and the RND connected to a switch, the switch is then connected to my router. I am getting transfer rates from the iMac to the RND of between 9 and 10MB/s, this is pretty good for 100Mb connections.
If I connect my XP laptop as wired to the router, a DG834G, I get similar speeds. If I connected wirelessly, it goes in fits and spurts. I have been into the settings for the .11g/b card in the laptop and enabled everything that indicates it is optimising for throughput/speed rather than power saving, but no luck. I am getting a new laptop in a few weeks, so will look at it again.
Netstumbler tells me there are no other networks in range.
SW.
--
3Mb FTTC
https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
VileReynard
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Re: Slow access to NAS over wireless vs wired?

I don't know if you noticed, but that Thecus N299 NAS can support Gigabit ethernet.
Since 100Mbits is maybe only 10 Mbytes/sec (and any single decent disk can reach 60+ MBytes/sec) then a RAID system certainly requires Gigabit ethernet.
Wireless is OK for small files and wireless printing though.
You should get an idea of how good/bad wireless is if you try to FTP from one PC to another.
(FTP is optimised for pure file transfer).
You can make a lot of coffee whilst it runs.

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