I'm doing some "cleanup" and I decided to get some files from my NAS and put it back in my PC so that it's easier to sort out, combine/delete/whatever. My PC is "connected" to the router via a powerline connector, my NAS is directly connected to the router. Transferring a set of files from my NAS to my HDD, I'm getting 10-11MB/s. I tried transferring from my HDD to a USB drive and I was getting 78-80MB/s. Is this normal? Is there any way to increase my transfer speed to/from my NAS?

I also "shared" some folders on my son's PC so that I could transfer some files onto it and I noticed that when I do so, the NAS-to-PC transfer would stop to make way for my PC-to-PC transfer. Is this normal?

My previous experience with network file transfers have mostly been copying game saves or installers from one PC to another so the files aren't that big or didn't take that long so I'm wondering if this is normal or if I'm doing something wrong?

Chances are your Router is the cheap kind, with 100MBit ethernet ports. 100/8 is 12.5 so getting 11MB/s is reasonable. Depending what the Powerline is rated for it might make sense to get a GBit switch and connect the NAS+PC there (and then link to the router).

Simultanous transfers should share the bandwidth, not stop each other.

So what specs would constitute a "good" router and what speeds should I be getting with it?

Router is the stock one from my ISP.

That's the problem, really. It was made to allow multiple PCs to share the internet connection, not to have a great home network.

Your choices are almost limitless, you have to decide what you want and how much you're willing to spend.




The Jedi Master

So to those with a good/great router, what transfer speeds do you guys get?

You'll also find different NAS's have different stransfer rates too. Some of the cheaper models/brands will be 10-11Mb/s and the better ones 70-90Mb/s with GB interfaces and decent processors.

I have all my LAN hardware dangling off 2 x interlinked dumb 8-port GB switches for max throughput and then one of my router ports (sky hub with 100Mb interfaces) is connected to the dumb switch too.......the router is then only used for DNS lookups and traffic that will go externally and the 100Mb ports aren't bottlenecking my LAN.

I'm using a 3TB WD My Cloud device but it doesn't say anything about transfer rates.


Sorry, say that again in English?

He's saying you don't buy a router with Gigabit ports, you buy a Gigabit switch and only connect the router to it. As i said initially

Obviously because Gigabit is 1000Mbit you'll have ten times the speed.

But again the Powerline also need to support Gigabit. The WD My Cloud seems to do it. Simple really: All connected devices and links must support Gigabit Ethernet.

So with Gigabit Ethernet, I could get transfer speeds of 100MB/s?

Yes.

A Byte is eight Bits. Gigabit is 1000MBit divided by Eight... makes sense?

But again, you'll need to check your Powerlines also.

For what it's worth, my Devolo '500mb' powerline adapters don't manage any more than 60. I still use them for a second wifi connection but my main PC is served by 15m of ethernet.

Internet connection was upgraded to 150mb a couple of months ago and I still haven't got round to replacing the 100mb switch in the middle of everything.

Okay, starting to make a little sense here... What if I buy a Gigabit router instead of just a Gigabit switch? What's the advantage of a Gigabit router, aside from not needing a switch?

It will effectively achieve the same thing as all your devices will be connected to the router and essentially have a gigabit backbone. In all honesty you would find it cheaper to buy a dumb (layer 2) gigabit switch and have all your devices connected to that, and then just have one of the ports from that gig switch connected to your existing router.

Very quick explanation with noddy MS paint diagram

Here we have PCs and a NAS with GB interfaces connected to a 100Mb router. The bottleneck are the interfaces on the router so regardless of how fast your peripherals can send data it will be theoretically restricted to 100Mbps divided by 8 (8 bits in a byte) which would give you 12.5MB/s per second maximum transfer speed. (there are overheads too so you wouldn't get that full speed anyway hence why you may see 10/11 etc)




You could effectively replace your router to one that has gigabit ports and that would enable full Gigabit transfer speed throughout your network...in which case you'd could theoretically have 1000Mbps divided by 8 = 125MB/s. More often than not you'll see 80-90MBps across a good network but don't forget you're also seeing the ceiling of performance/throughput at this point for mechanical drives too. The main reason I'd say go for a dumb switch and keep your router is that you achieve the same performance for less money and you will get additional ports...the only thing you 'lose' is a plug socket.

The image below shows the addition of the gig switch...everything connected to it will run with the gigabit backbone using the blue lines. When your data goes out of your home network and via the internet then it will pass over the 100Mb connection to the router interface port but at that point the internet is the bottleneck on the assumption your ISP connection is anywhere between 8 and 40MBps. (or anything less than 100Mbps)



Bear in mind, you did mention your NAS in a previous post....if that only has 100Mb interfaces then that would also bottleneck file transfers on a gigabit network too.


Regarding Bruns post above with the powerlines.....a 500Mbps network would have a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 62.5MB/s. (500 divided by 8). You often see some people getting confused with Mega bits per second which is bandwidth (Mbps) and MegaBytes per second which is data transfer (MB/s) hence why the calculation is needed. 100Mbps is not the same as 100MB/s so network bandwidth does not equate to how many MegaBytes of data are transferred per second. Clear as mud?....hope that helps a bit.

That was exactly what I was thinking, Paradaz. The question was what other benefits do I get if I "spend more" on a new router as well? I'm hoping the new Virgin Media router (Hub 3.0) isn't a 100Mbps thing as they were touting 100+Mbps internet speeds... currently getting 70Mbps down, 5Mbps up just testing now.

In all honesty a gig router will give you the gig backbone you probably need...but not a lot else. It's not going to give you any real improvements unless the wifi connections are faster and you have supporting laptops with 802.11 a/n etc.

Generally the better routers will give you more options/control over things like MAC filtering/port forwarding/firewall rules etc. The standard routers from Sky/Virgin typically give you a LAN with limited control over DHCP scopes, the subnet mask for your LAN and security related configuration.

So something like this would work, right?

The rest of what you said went right over my head again.... why would I want those? I just really need to open ports for Falcon BMS and other games but when I say that I'm using my default ISP router, some people look at me like I've got a disease or something...

That would do the job fine as long as 4 ports are enough to cover your devices (the fifth port would connect to your router). For most people a simple router will do the job they need....as long as it does layer 3 routing, connects by ethernet/wifi, maintains a reliable connection and lets you setup some simple port-forwarding then that's enough for most people.

For others, it mainly comes down to finer control of the security elements and fine tuning of the configuration or connecting another layer 3 device to the network which the bog-standard routers that an ISP gives you often don't include/allow.

Layer 3 routing?

As for the switch, well, the internet comes into the house into what used to be the man-cave but we've since upgraded the "man-cave" into a games room for me and the boys so now the PC is basically in the room next to where the router is. That's why I purchased the powerline network adaptor, so I can still "hard-wire" my PC even though it's in the next room. So the switch will basically just handle the NAS and the router. My two gaming PCs are connected via the powerline network adaptor, the rest of the stuff at home goes via wireless. I may buy another powerline network adaptor so that the "movie PC" downstairs can be hard-wired too...

For some reason, I thought I could connect my NAS to my PC via USB cable. Looked at the documentation and it seems that I'm mistaken, but this has given me an idea... What if I set up my connections like so:

> Internet comes into the house and connects to the router
> Router connects to the powerline network adaptor (checked mine and it says 500Mbps)
> Other powerline network adaptor is in the next room, connected to the gigabit ethernet switch
> Ethernet switch is connected to two gaming PCs and the NAS

That way, my PCs and NAS can talk to each other at gigabit speeds and the 500Mbps should be more than enough for the "wired" internet connection to the PCs. Will that work?

Yes, as long as your NAS has a Gigabit NIC (not 100Mbps).

Your link from Gig switch to the router (via Powerline) will be 100Mbps due to the router interfaces but that will be fine.

I think you said you have 70Mbps internet so if both PCs were downloading data simultaneouslythat 100Mbps link from the single router interface to the switch would share that bandwidth to both PCs. (Connecting 2 links from router to switch via poweline would not double up the bandwidth by the way.......you'd need a managed switch and vlans for that but thats another story).

What you've proposed sounds like the best option to me without drilling holes through the wall.