Slow File Transfer On Wireless

Hello everyone!
I needed to copy few ISOs from one laptop to another and thought that an easy way would be to just copy them over the network, instead of copying to an external hard drive and then copying again... Well, it was easy an all, but the transfer speed was REALLY slow... I mean it was transfering at only about 1mb/s... I download files of the internet faster than that lol. I have the classing Linksys wrt54g with tomato firmware on it.
Things I tried:
Disabling all firewalls.
Giving permissions and all that.
Checking obvious options in the router's settings.


Any more things I should check for?

 

How fast do you peak for WAN downloads? Don't expect the full 54mbps for file transfers, even over the network.

Also, are the to and from machines both wireless? Or is one machine wired and one wireless?

If both wireless, 1MB/s doesn't seem all that stranger. Realistically, I can only get a tiny bit above 100mbps on my 300mbps connection.

 

I don't expect full 54mbps, but I thought 10mp/s would be realistic.

I would say that its a bit strange as I get 3-4mb/s when downloading from torrents etc.
I tried wireless to wired and wireless to wireless.. same results.

 

Random thoughts:

o ISO file format? Try an mp3 for comparison.

o Could anti-malware be slowing things down?

o Windows copy always seems to be too slow once you've seen other programs do it much faster.

GK

 

Your speeds are normal.

I have a Linksys WRT54G flashed with DD-WRT and I get 2.5 MB/s max with file transfers through Wireless G. You should know that 54 Mbps = 6.75 MB/s and it is very common for you to get less than this theoretical speed.

Connecting through wired ethernet 10/100 I get around 11 MB/s max with file transfers.

Internet download speeds are not the same as transfering speeds in a home network. Also, wired connections will always be faster than wireless connections.

 

10 mb/s or 10 MB/s? (there's a difference)

Like I said, on a 300mbps wireless connection, I'll get 100mbps/12.5MBps.

 

I'd like some clarification on units too- it's hard to guess if "mbps" and "mb/s" are used in an interchangeable fashion or maybe it's more of "mbps" and "MB/s".

 

I meant megaBYTES per second, not bits.
Theoretically, I should be getting 6.75MB/s and I know that thats not probably possible, but I was expecting at least 2-3MB/s.
Also, I have another router (not currently connected, but I tested on it). It's the 802.11n router and so is my laptop, but the speeds weren't much different. Should N be at least twice as fast? (Desktop is connected vie cable and laptop via 802.11n)
EDIT:
Just did a quick file transfer (pics and vids) and it was exactly 1MB/s most of the time...

EDIT2: If you guys are saying that 1MB/s is not bad, how can I be getting 2.5MB/s download from the internet?

 

If you were uploading and downloading wirelessly meaning transferring files from one notebook to another max throughput is usually cut in half especially for older routers. So you get some 2MB/s cut in half which is what you got.

As for "n" router- you have to use WPA2+AES as security otherwise you end up with 802.11g speeds anyway. At what speed are you connected to “n” router according to Windows?

 

Also, make sure you assign your wireless router to "Wireless G Only". Assigning it to both "B + G" could decrease wireless speeds.

If you mix Wireless B devices with Wireless G devices then your wireless speed will be always be 11 Mbps (1.375 MB/s) or less and not Wireless G speeds.

Just mentioning this incase you are still using older devices.

P.S. Just hook up both laptops with ethernet 10/100 to the wireless router and transfer files at around 11-12.5 MB/s or just use the external hard drive. It'll save you a lot of time.

 

Both laptops are newer (2009+) and both are connected to "G".
I know I can connect via wired and use an external hard drive, but that kinda defeats the purpose of wireless.

I will set up the "N" router again and see if I can set it up like the guy about mentioned and see if the speeds improve. (I don't use it on regular bases as its range is crap)

 

Wiring up to do an intensive transfer might sound like defeating the purpose of wireless, but then again, wireless really isn't capable of handling massive, intensive file transfers, for a variety of reasons.

In other words, you're expecting wireless to do something it's not really capable of doing, so there's not really anything there to defeat.

Also, the comparison to speeds you can get when you're downloading from the internet are very misleading, unless you correct for a number of different variables. First, when you have one system downloading from the internet, there's only one system using the wireless radio waves, not two, which is a major factor.

Why? Two main reasons: first, both systems in your transfer scenario cannot be both transmitting and receiving at the same time; if they were, one signal would be stepping on the other and you'd get mostly noise and gibberish - then your speeds would really drop.

Second, the wireless protocol is designed to be collision-avoidant, which in very basic terms means that each wireless card first sticks a metaphorical finger into the aether to see if any other system within range is broadcasting on the frequency it's accessing. If it detects any other traffic then it stops and waits a short period of time before checking again; only when it checks and finds that no other system is broadcasting will it broadcast its own signal. The practical effect of this is that on any wireless frequency where you have more than one wireless card broadcasting, you will never get seamless switching between systems - there will always be a gap of time, even if only milliseconds, between the time one system stops broadcasting and the other system starts broadcasting.

Another factor to take into account is that in reality you don't just have two systems using one wireless frequency, you have three systems - your two laptops and the wireless router itself. Each of those systems uses the same collision-avoidant behaviour and each requires time on the frequency to broadcast, if nothing else to acknowledge that it received the previous transfer. In other words, it's not the case that you only have one system broadcasting, a second one passively receiving, and the router passively or transparently rebroadcasting the sender's signals to the receiver's wireless card.

All in all, if you're attempting to use a wireless router to do local (i.e., intranet) file transfers, then you're lucky if you get even 1/3 of the speed you would normally see if you have just one system downloading files from the internet.