How fast is a NAS compared to a Windows 10 shared folder?

[rootuser39301]

I have a Windows 10 shared folder on my external hard drive connected via USB 3. My share is over my local WiFi and I am connecting to it with an iPad. My router supports 300mbps WiFi speeds which would be the speed locally. So that would be 37.5MB/s upload speeds to my shared folder. I was uploading some files recently and it took a good couple of minutes to upload files that were 30 - 40MB and altogether it was 1GB. Considering that Win10 uses SMBv3 which is 1108MB/s it should have transferred much faster. What is the bottleneck in my setup? If a buy a NAS will it be faster on my network? What could I do to improve my speeds? My aim is to transfer at least 100MB/s.

[WereCatf]

3 minutes ago, rootuser39301 said:

So that would be 37.5MB/s upload speeds to my shared folder

No, WiFi is a simplex-protocol and thus you practically get only half of that speed.

4 minutes ago, rootuser39301 said:

What is the bottleneck in my setup?

WiFi.

[Kilrah]

Likely the WiFi, 300Mbps is "at best in ideal circumstances", you'll likely not get more than 10MB/s or so out of it in practice.

[Levent]

Your bottleneck is your wifi connection, not your SMB server or the protocol. I am using a $10 ARM SBC and it is able to get 50-60mb per second transfer over ethernet (and thats due to USB2.0 HDDs).

[rootuser39301]

My router has 100mbps ethernet ports so I would get the same speed via Ethernet. So the solution is to buy a router with gigabit or 10 gigabit LAN ports?

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, rootuser39301 said:

My router has 100mbps ethernet ports so I would get the same speed via Ethernet. So the solution is to buy a router with gigabit or 10 gigabit LAN ports?

Nope, your iPad would still be limited by your WiFi-speed and thus any file-transfers would still proceed at that speed.

[shoutingsteve]

Wifi 6 helped this a lot.  Older wifi used to be ale to only talk to one device at a time, so uploading information from one source then downloading it to another from the same access point would cut it in half.  wifi 6 fixed this.  Replace your router with a wifi 6 one.

[StDragon]

36 minutes ago, rootuser39301 said:

 What could I do to improve my speeds? My aim is to transfer at least 100MB/s.

That translates to 800Mb/s; you're not going to get that with WiFi. In theory, you could, in the best of lab conditions and the proper equipment, but with consumer electronics, no way, not even close.

 

As for the future? With WiFi 6, that looks more promising.

 

BTW, nobody doing any serious amount of work that calls for sustained gigabit speeds will be using anything short of CAT5e and CAT6 ethernet. For 4k streaming to a TV, I would still cable that puppy with ethernet.

[Kilrah]

15 minutes ago, StDragon said:

That translates to 800Mb/s; you're not going to get that with WiFi. In theory, you could, in the best of lab conditions and the proper equipment, but with consumer electronics, no way, not even close.

With my laptop close to my router (both WiFi 6) I get a good 85MB/s transfer.

[StDragon]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

With my laptop close to my router (both WiFi 6) I get a good 85MB/s transfer.

 

"Close". Yup, the best of conditions 

[rootuser39301]

27 minutes ago, StDragon said:

That translates to 800Mb/s; you're not going to get that with WiFi. In theory, you could, in the best of lab conditions and the proper equipment, but with consumer electronics, no way, not even close.

 

As for the future? With WiFi 6, that looks more promising.

 

BTW, nobody doing any serious amount of work that calls for sustained gigabit speeds will be using anything short of CAT5e and CAT6 ethernet. For 4k streaming to a TV, I would still cable that puppy with ethernet.

I have videos with 5MB/s bitrate in 1080p x264. So if they were more than 10MB/s they would not play because of my WiFi? 

 

My iPad is not WiFi 6. So I could connect a Lightning to Ethernet adapter with a powered USB hub to my iPad and run a Cat 5e cable to my Windows 10 machine’s gigabit Ethernet port and I’d get 125MB/s? 

 

I live in Australia so a WiFi 6 router would set me back $250 and an iPad Pro with WiFi 6 would cost me $1500. Ethernet looks like the best option.

[Kilrah]

48 minutes ago, rootuser39301 said:

I have videos with 5MB/s bitrate in 1080p x264. So if they were more than 10MB/s they would not play because of my WiFi? 

Videos bitrates are in Mb/s, not MB/s, so 8 times less. A 10Mb/s video only needs 1.25MB/s.

[Jarsky]

8 hours ago, rootuser39301 said:

I have videos with 5MB/s bitrate in 1080p x264. So if they were more than 10MB/s they would not play because of my WiFi? 

 

My iPad is not WiFi 6. So I could connect a Lightning to Ethernet adapter with a powered USB hub to my iPad and run a Cat 5e cable to my Windows 10 machine’s gigabit Ethernet port and I’d get 125MB/s? 

 

I live in Australia so a WiFi 6 router would set me back $250 and an iPad Pro with WiFi 6 would cost me $1500. Ethernet looks like the best option.

 

You don't need WiFi 6 if you're just watching video over the network. 

Even if I direct stream my largest 2160p (4K) HDR Dolby Atmos rips over WiFi they still only peak at around 200Mbps, average is around 50Mbps (~6MB/s) which 802.11AC wave2 can easily handle. I know the newer Airport Extremes and iPads do 3x3 MU-MIMO, not sure about the iPads though. But yeah you dont *need* WiFi 6 for a single client, just need to work out where your restriction is. Of course if you're looking to replace this gear anyway then yeah WiFi 6 is the best upgrade.