Wifi vs Powerline for large data transfers?

[Gerr]

My bedroom PC will soon double as a Blu-Ray ripping & encoding PC.  Once the files are encoded, I then need to copy them to my media server elsewhere on the network.  I was wondering if Wifi or Powerline would be faster for that as at the moment, I can't run a wired connection to my bedroom.

 

Wifi:

Good quality 1300-AC AP connected to a Wifi bridge of the same speed, then wired into my PC.  I have other AP's in my house, so the bridge is the ONLY connection that is on that AP so it's not sharing bandwidth.  My pings to the router are 2ms.

 

Powerline:

Good 2Gbps set only using two of them.  Old house(1977), so all power connections will go through the main breaker.  Both units are plugged directly into the wall.  My pings to the router are 3ms.

 

While it looks like the Wifi is faster, I wonder if the nature of Wifi might actually be slower for large transfers.  Anyone know?

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Gerr said:

My bedroom PC will soon double as a Blu-Ray ripping & encoding PC.  Once the files are encoded, I then need to copy them to my media server elsewhere on the network.  I was wondering if Wifi or Powerline would be faster for that as at the moment, I can't run a wired connection to my bedroom.

 

Wifi:

Good quality 1300-AC AP connected to a Wifi bridge of the same speed, then wired into my PC.  I have other AP's in my house, so the bridge is the ONLY connection that is on that AP so it's not sharing bandwidth.  My pings to the router are 2ms.

 

Powerline:

Good 2Gbps set only using two of them.  Old house(1977), so all power connections will go through the main breaker.  Both units are plugged directly into the wall.  My pings to the router are 3ms.

 

While it looks like the Wifi is faster, I wonder if the nature of Wifi might actually be slower for large transfers.  Anyone know?

You will have to test both - Powerline SOMETIMES offers better overall throughput and stability compared to WIFI, but the quality of your electrical wiring will impact this significantly.

 

When you transfer a large video file over the existing Wireless AC, what kind of speeds are you getting currently?

[FloRolf]

I personally use powerline and while they are gigabit rated I only get about 5 megabytes/s with that crap. If you really want to regularly transfer big files you should fully wire your house. 

[aisle9]

I've had good experiences with powerline speed, and my old house's wiring was "I can't believe this place hasn't burned down yet" level. As long as you're only using 2-3 adapters and aren't trying to connect the basement office with the second floor bedroom, I think you'd be ok.

[Peter041098]

the bottleneck is most likely Ethernet port on your mobo,

it is most likely a gigabit port,

AC1300 WiFi it adding the maximum of both channels together and the control signals

 

the power-line is more likely to maintiane the speed you are after

[Gerr]

Both my AP & bridge are true AC-1300, so 3 channels of 433.  Total they claim 1300-AC & 300-N for 1600 total, but I am only using the 5Ghz AC.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Gerr said:

but I am only using the 5Ghz AC.

Thats because thats all you can. You either connect to 2.4 Ghz or to 5Ghz, not both at the same. Also its not just about what the AP is rated for, you also need to look at the device itself. For example just from looking around many laptop AC cards top out at like 867 Mbps on 5Ghz, while desktop PCI express cards Ive seen them labeled for higher speeds. 

[dalekphalm]

7 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Thats because thats all you can. You either connect to 2.4 Ghz or to 5Ghz, not both at the same. Also its not just about what the AP is rated for, you also need to look at the device itself. For example just from looking around many laptop AC cards top out at like 867 Mbps on 5Ghz, while desktop PCI express cards Ive seen them labeled for higher speeds. 

You could in theory connect to both frequencies, but I’m not aware of any consumer device that does this. 

[Crion]

Also the distance from your router and how many objects between you and it will factor into the speed.  For example (these are not real numbers, they're just for illustration), Let's say I'm 20 feet from my router.  On AC, I'll get 800 Mbps but put 2 walls between me and the router at the same distance and my speed is now reduced to 400 Mbps due to signal attenuation.