wireless n speeds with airport extreme base station
hi
i have just bought an airport extreme base station and am connecting a macbook to it wirelessly for backing up data wirelessly to a usb hard drive. i installed the airport software that came with the base station which appears to have installed the wireless n update, and in Network Utility it shows a connection speed of 130Mb, which I am suspecting is megabit per second, and equivalent to around 16MB per second, but i am getting transfer rates of only around 3MB per second with the Macbook right next to the base station with a full signal level. Is there some other setting that i need to change or is this the best speed i can expect?
thanks
nick
i have just bought an airport extreme base station and am connecting a macbook to it wirelessly for backing up data wirelessly to a usb hard drive. i installed the airport software that came with the base station which appears to have installed the wireless n update, and in Network Utility it shows a connection speed of 130Mb, which I am suspecting is megabit per second, and equivalent to around 16MB per second, but i am getting transfer rates of only around 3MB per second with the Macbook right next to the base station with a full signal level. Is there some other setting that i need to change or is this the best speed i can expect?
thanks
nick
Comments
If it's a USB 1.0 drive, that's not a bad speed. If it's 2.0 ... well, it depends.
For instance:
http://reviews.cnet.com/hard-drives/...7-9849621.html
In CNET Labs' tests, the MicroGB performed well using both connections (we show only the FireWire results in the chart). HD Tach rated the MicroGB's IEEE 1394 burst-transfer rate at 37.3MB per second, its maximum read speed at 24.7MB per second, and its maximum write rate at 16MB per second--all scores that tie or slightly beat those of the SmartDisk FireLite FLFW40. In our real-world transfer tests, the drive wrote large files at 15MB per second and small files at 3.2MB per second; it read them back at 17.7MB per second and 2.7MB per second, respectively. Attached to a USB 2.0 bus, the drive performed 15 to 25 percent slower, and when using USB 1.1, all transfer rates dropped below 1MB per second due to that technology's limited bandwidth.
I'm thinking you don't have a problem. To know for sure, send a huge file... a gig or so.
I easily reach 10MB/sec when within good range and (wirelessly) copying files to another mac. Copying the a HD connected the AEn, it tops at around 3MB/sec, where writing to the disk is even slower then reading from the disk.
[spoon]
it is a USB 2.0 drive. I have tried copying using a Gigabit ethernet cable as well and get around 6MB per second which is still slow for Gigabit. Is the only way to get fast speeds for backups to get an ethernet capable drive or NAS? how much faster would this be via the airport extreme base station?
The USB port on an AirPort Extreme Base Station or AirPort Express is only intended for the uses described here. It is not for use with other USB devices, such as broadband modems, speakers, disk drives, or keyboards.
And that's interesting, 'cause ...
http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/sharing.html
New to AirPort Extreme, AirPort Disk turns almost any external USB hard drive into a shared drive. Simply connect the drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and — voila — all the documents, videos, photos, and other files on the drive instantly become available to anyone on the secure network, Mac and PC alike. It’s perfect for file sharing, collaborative projects, and more.
Yet even more info:
http://www.macintouch.com/readerrepo...topic4545.html
Barry Brown
There is a major problem with the Apple Airport Extreme involving USB disk access. I have the "older" 100BaseT model to which I have attached a USB hard drive to share among my various Macs. There have been many postings on the Apple discussion boards [USB Disk access "Extremely" Slow] about poor disk performance when the Airport Extreme is used to share disks. While some users report slow throughput, others claim to have no issues at all.
I have confirmed, through testing, that some USB disks do indeed exhibit very poor write throughput when compared to other USB disks. This could have a serious impact for anyone using a USB disk with an Airport Extreme, especially when used for its intended purpose: to do unobtrusive backups.
This problem was first brought to my attention when I purchased an Other World Computing (OWC) Mercury Elite Pro "Quad Interface" enclosure. In it I placed a Seagate Barracuda 3.5" 400GB SATA drive. This drive, which sports four types of interfaces (USB 2.0, FW400, FW800, and eSATA) for attaching to a computer, performed admirably over FW800 when connected directly to my PowerMac G5 tower. But when I connected it to my Airport Extreme, throughput suffered. Writing to the drive was especially bad.
The drive enclosure is manufactured by Newer Technologies. Many emails with their technical support division turned up no solutions. In fact, Newer's tech support denied that there was any kind of performance issue at all.
In desperation, I connected up an old "generic" USB enclosure with an even older 20GB IDE hard drive. To my surprise, throughput was quite good. Clearly, there is some bad interaction between the Airport Extreme, the USB enclosure and its internal driver circuitry, and the hard drive.
Ultimately, I wanted a nicer enclosure that would fit under my Airport Extreme. I settled on the miniStack v3. Like the Mercury Elite Pro, the miniStack v3 also a quad interface enclosure. It, too, is manufactured by Newer Technologies. I also purchased a 500GB Hitachi SATA drive. After hooking everything up, the results were the same: write performance through the Airport Extreme was poor.
Finally, at wit's end, I decided to settle this once and for all and run some tests. I suspect that there's something about the Newer Technologies driver circuitry that is reducing throughput. I wanted to pit the miniStack against the cheapest USB enclosure I could fine. In the tests, I attempted to eliminate as many variables as possible. The only variable would be the USB enclosure.
Two enclosures:
Newer Technologies miniStack v3 with quad interfaces ($120, from www.macsales.com);
AverTech SATA HDD Enclosure with only a USB 2.0 interface ($35, at Fry's).
One hard drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 3.5" 400GB SATA hard drive.
Two connection types:
Directly connected to the Mac via USB cable;
Via the AirPort Extreme, using 100BaseT Fast Ethernet (not wireless).
Methodology:
I ran eight tests. Four were "read" tests and four were "write" tests. All tests used the same 600MB mix of files and folders. The files ranged in sizes from under 1K to over 200MB. Before each write test, the drive was reformatted using the Apple Disk Utility.
The results are as follows:
AverTech, directly connected via USB 2.0 to the Mac, write 600MB: 50 seconds;
Newer miniStack, directly connected via USB 2.0 to the Mac, write 600MB: 51 seconds;
AverTech, directly connected via USB 2.0 to the Mac, read 600MB: 45 seconds;
Newer miniStack, directly connected via USB 2.0 to the Mac, read 600MB: 48 seconds;
AverTech, via Airport Extreme, write 600MB: <b>186</b> seconds;
Newer miniStack, via Airport Extreme, write 600MB: <b>383</b> seconds;
AverTech, via Airport Extreme, read 600MB: 77 seconds;
Newer miniStack, via Airport Extreme, read 600MB: 78 seconds.
In all tests, the miniStack is no faster than the "cheapie" USB enclosure. In fact, it's always slower. But most alarming is the write throughput via the Airport Extreme. The miniStack is takes almost twice as long!
Also worth noting is the noise the drive makes when performing the tests. In seven of the eight tests (all except the slow write test noted above), the drive is nearly silent. All I can hear is the motor and a very quiet clicking as the heads move back and forth. In contrast, during the Airpot Extreme write test using the miniStack, the drive is very loud. The heads can be heard noisily clacking back and forth. Something different is clearly happening with the miniStack.
Conclusion:
The OWC Mercury Elite Pro "Quad Interface" and the Newer Technologies miniStack v3 both behave identically. I suspect that the internals of both enclosures are nearly the same, as they are both made by the same manufacturer (Newer Tech) and both are quad interface devices. Both enclosure exhibit very slow write throughput when connected to my Mac via the Airport Extreme.
The AverTech USB enclosure (the cheapest thing I could find at my local Fry's) is identical in performance to the miniStack except when writing files via the Airport Extreme. In that test, it is much faster and much quieter.
I suspect that there is some kind of bad interaction between the Apple Airport Extreme and these "multi interface" enclosures. A no-name USB-only enclosure soundly beats a name brand multi interface one. Someone, either Apple or the USB drive enclosure manufacturers, needs to explain these dismal throughput numbers.
I've learned one thing for sure: spending more -- a lot more -- on an enclosure doesn't necessarily get you better quality or higher speed.
(I've reproduced this posting, with graphics, at http://barry-brown.blogspot.com/2007...les-write.html)
hi
i have just bought an airport extreme base station and am connecting a macbook to it wirelessly for backing up data wirelessly to a usb hard drive. i installed the airport software that came with the base station which appears to have installed the wireless n update, and in Network Utility it shows a connection speed of 130Mb, which I am suspecting is megabit per second, and equivalent to around 16MB per second, but i am getting transfer rates of only around 3MB per second with the Macbook right next to the base station with a full signal level. Is there some other setting that i need to change or is this the best speed i can expect?
thanks
nick
The limiting factor is not the USB port or the Wireless network. It's the feeble processor in the Airport Extreme base station.
You can make it's life easier by formatting the drive as HFS. You might be able to get as much as 5 or 6 megabytes per second. Not as fast as the network but worth doing.
C.
The limiting factor is not the USB port or the Wireless network. It's the feeble processor in the Airport Extreme base station.
You can make it's life easier by formatting the drive as HFS. You might be able to get as much as 5 or 6 megabytes per second. Not as fast as the network but worth doing.
C.
So am i going to get the same problem with Gigabit wired networking? If so, what is the best/fastest solution - a different router/ethernet drive/NAS?
thanks
nick
So am i going to get the same problem with Gigabit wired networking? If so, what is the best/fastest solution - a different router/ethernet drive/NAS?
thanks
nick
If you have an old PC or Mac - cram it with drives and hook that up to the base station via Ethernet.
It's cheap, fast and reliable. And you can do other stuff with it too.
C.
thanks
The limiting factor is not the USB port or the Wireless network. It's the feeble processor in the Airport Extreme base station.
You can make it's life easier by formatting the drive as HFS. You might be able to get as much as 5 or 6 megabytes per second. Not as fast as the network but worth doing.
C.
This has been pretty much my experience. The base station just isn't up to doing what it's supposed to be able to.
I have four different enclosures, two ministack style things, two generic ones. Four different HDs, either 320 gig or 750 gig. The base station just seems to be unable to handle one particular 750gig drive, while at the same time serving wirelessly. If I plug the net cable in rather than using wireless it's ok. Any other drive (including a seemingly identical 750 gig drive) works fine. I've swapped that problematic drive from enclosure to enclosure, trying to determine if it's the drive or the enclosure, with out luck, the problem seems to be the drive, not the enclosures. I've even formatted that drive to see if it was something on the disk, only to find it locks up the base station even when newly formatted and untouched. This isn't a case of"the airport extreme is slow", it's "the airport extreme stops working entirely".
When the Airdisk works well you seem to be able to get up to 6MB/s, for unexplained reasons thou, it will usually drop to 3MB/s. I've never figured it out, and basically given up on it altogether.
i don't have an old pc/mac lying around. would i get the same speeds plugging an ethernet drive such as the LaCie 1.5TB Ethernet Big Disk Hard Drive into the airport base station? and if so, what sort of speeds can i expect?
thanks
You should get "good" speeds. By that I mean speeds limited by either the speed of the LaCie drive, or by the speed of the Wireless network. Not limited by the CPU in the base-station. I don't know the performance of the LaCie.
The best real world throughput for the Airport Extreme in over wireless I have seen is about 9 MegaBYTES per second. This is in 5GHz mode. The 2.4Ghz (backwards compatible) modes are slower. That's benchmarking my Airport Extreme which is the 100Mb Ethernet variety.
C.