Faster network transfer speeds with Wireless AC

[paperrobots]

Right now my computer is connected via Wireless AC with a promised speed of up to 867Mbps. However I'm only getting 200-400 on average. I'm connected to my other windows computer that is Wired with a gigabit connection. All cables are Cat5e or 6. I'm testing by dragging a large file onto the network drive, if there's a better way to test this please let me know. 

 

Seems like both machines are capable of faster. I double checked drivers were up to date, no improvements. Is there any settings I can change to help this? 

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Wireless speeds can be affected by numerous factors, the main ones being distance from the signal, strength of the signal and interference. Along with factors that affect the speed, there's a degree of performance overhead with wireless. Your NIC will also make a difference to the speeds you get. 

 

Where is your PC located in relation to the Access Point? Try putting it in the same room if it's not already and see how the speeds are affected. Also, wire in the PC and perform the same test to see if the limiting factor is actually the wireless. 

 

Also, bear in mind that 867Mbps is the "up to" speed, which is the theoretical maximum in ideal conditions. 

[paperrobots]

Yeah it's already in the same room. I'm not expecting 867Mbps but I would hope I could consistently get more than 200Mbps. I got better than that on my last Wireless N setup. 

[paperrobots]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Wireless speeds can be affected by numerous factors, the main ones being distance from the signal, strength of the signal and interference. Along with factors that affect the speed, there's a degree of performance overhead with wireless. Your NIC will also make a difference to the speeds you get. 

 

Where is your PC located in relation to the Access Point? Try putting it in the same room if it's not already and see how the speeds are affected. Also, wire in the PC and perform the same test to see if the limiting factor is actually the wireless. 

 

Also, bear in mind that 867Mbps is the "up to" speed, which is the theoretical maximum in ideal conditions. 

I just tried a wired connection, it went fast for the first few seconds and then it petered out. Down to a less than 200Mbps speed. So does this mean the computer I'm transferring to is bottlenecking? 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, paperrobots said:

I just tried a wired connection, it went fast for the first few seconds and then it petered out. Down to a less than 200Mbps speed. So does this mean the computer I'm transferring to is bottlenecking? 

Run Crystaldiskinfo benchmarks on both systems and see if either of the drives is running particularly slow. 

Try using this, rather than a normal file: http://totusoft.com/lanspeed1/

[d3sl91]

Are you transferring from SATA3 SSD to SATA3 SSD? Most HDD are not capable of 200, more like 100Mbps on a brand new drive. 

[paperrobots]

2 minutes ago, d3sl91 said:

Are you transferring from SATA3 SSD to SATA3 SSD? Most HDD are not capable of 200, more like 100Mbps on a brand new drive. 

Hmmm I guess that could be it then. Sata3 SSD to Sata3 WD Red HDD. 

[d3sl91]

14 minutes ago, paperrobots said:

Hmmm I guess that could be it then. Sata3 SSD to Sata3 WD Red HDD. 

This may help: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8265/wd-red-pro-review-4-tb-drives-for-nas-systems-benchmarked/4

RAW, this drive can do ~170 peak, but then when you look at NAS benchmarks, they are closer to 100Mbps. 

 

 

[paperrobots]

I'm a little confused.. that seems to show MegaBYTEs (MB/s) not MegaBITS (Mbps). So if that's true I should be capable of more speed. However... After running Crystal Disk I found out that my hard drives are my bottleneck. They are only getting 30-40MB/s. I think it's how I have my RAID setup, I'm backing up my data now then I'm going to try changing that up. 

26 minutes ago, d3sl91 said:

Are you transferring from SATA3 SSD to SATA3 SSD? Most HDD are not capable of 200, more like 100Mbps

 

[skywake]

2 hours ago, paperrobots said:

Right now my computer is connected via Wireless AC with a promised speed of up to 867Mbps. However I'm only getting 200-400 on average.

That's actually typical, it's a theoretical number. They work it out like this: theoretical max for UL + theoretical max for DL. If it's a dual band device? They'll also add up all of the bands and combine them. But what you actual get is a number less than the theoretical max and obviously you only use one band and one direction at a time.

 

So "AC1200" is: 150Mbps UL/150Mbps DL on 2.4G + 450Mbps UL/450Mbps DL on 5G

downloading a file? You're using the 450Mbps theoretical DL on 5G! .... add overheads, interference ect and you end up with 250Mbps or so

[Crion]

Also a factor to keep in mind is the number of spatial streams (This is usually denoted 2x2 or 3x3) for both the AP and device and the radio you're on (5Ghz vs 2.4 Ghz).  The max theoretical given for a particular AP is dependent on these as well as things like distance from the AP, signal attenuation (aka walls), and SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio).  I can't get very detailed because all of this stuff will vary by manufacturer.

[beavo451]

2 hours ago, paperrobots said:

I'm a little confused.. that seems to show MegaBYTEs (MB/s) not MegaBITS (Mbps). So if that's true I should be capable of more speed. However... After running Crystal Disk I found out that my hard drives are my bottleneck. They are only getting 30-40MB/s. I think it's how I have my RAID setup, I'm backing up my data now then I'm going to try changing that up. 

What RAID are you using?

[Mikensan]

Was going to say most people can't max out a gigabit link but it looks like you've found your answer with crystalmark. If you want to test speeds then use something like ramdisk or simply iperf. If both systems are windows then ramdisk is pretty easy but if one system is linux/unix/bsd then iperf may be a lot easier.

 

Don't be too discouraged, if nothing else I'm sure the router you bought has a higher total maximum throughput, so multiple devices on it won't be slower