Slow NAS transfer speeds over wireless (fast over wired)

I am experiencing extremely slow read and write speeds over wireless from my NAS. Any tips to diagnose the issue would be appreciated. Here is my setup:

• Synology DS212j NAS, inside are 2 WD Red drives in RAID 1 connected by Cat 5 to the router. Synology utility recognizes the connection as gigabit (1000, Full Duplex, MTU 1500)
• Actiontec MI424WR Rev I router: Gigabit / 802.11 N dual streams, single band, WPA2 enabled) - free router that comes with Verizon FIOS.
• Connected over wifi to my laptop - SSD storage and Intel N2200 (dual streams 802.11 N), running Win 7

I performed the following tests:

• On the laptop mapped a shared drive to a directory on the NAS
• Copied a 4GB file from the laptop to the NAS
• In dialog for "Copying File" clicked on "More Details" button.
• The transfer speed varies from 2.5 MBps 10 feet away from router to 4.2 MBps next to router

Next I went to SpeedTest.net to check my transfer speeds to the internet over wireless. The results were around 35 MBps both download and upload when next to router.

Next I turned off the wireless radio on the laptop, and connected it by Cat 5 directly to the router
Copying the file to the NAS over LAN yielded around 45 MBps write speed

Next I went to SpeedTest.net to check my transfer speeds to the internet over LAN. The results were around 60 MBps download, 35 MBps upload.

I am baffled because independently the NAS, the router, and the wireless connection perform well, but when you put them together they slow to a crawl. Does anyone have any suggestions for me to try, or concerns about any of my methods?

 

2.4 GHz interference is your bottleneck. Buy a separate router, preferably 802.11ac and at the minimum AC1200 class. Also, replace that Intel 2200 with Intel 7260AC so you can transfer 50 MB/s aka 400 Mbps on WiFi -> Ethernet or Ethernet -> WiFi.

 

@huai

You might be messing with units here. Speedtest shows results in mbps (megabits per second) while you LAN transfer are most likely properly quoted in MBps (megabytes per second).

Therefore your wifi test on speedtest shows about 4.3MB/s which is in line with your LAN transfers over Wi-Fi of 4.2MB/s.

Long story short - cbautis2 is right. 802.11ac is the way to go for you.

 

Good point about speedtest being in bits not bytes. Sadly my lenovo laptop uses a whitelist, so no ac network adapter allowed. Best I can do is Centrino N-6205.

 

There are 7260s meant for Lenovo which might work (check with other users of the same model) and there are also modified BIOSes that remove white-listing.

If you want to use NAS via Wi-Fi comfortably you really need 802.11ac (I know something about it - that's why I upgraded in the first place)

 

My model (Thinkpad X-230) only whitelists N2200 and N6205. Unfortunately for the past 5 years, ever since they started using UEFI Lenovo added a checksum check for all BIOS updates. This means the only way to flash a modded BIOS to a Thinkpad nowadays is with a hardware flasher - where you take your laptop apart and physically connect a flasher to the BIOS chip and write it that way.

I guess I'll have to live with the slow NAS for now, and will get AC in my next laptop.

On an related note - you may know the answer. My wireless printer is starting to act up and I'm planning to buy a new one. Do they make wireless printers with a 802.11 AC receiver? I don't print frequently, but when I do it's often PDF files that are several 10's of MBs.

 

I didn't notice wireless printers that use 802.11ac but even of there are none there's still a way around it.

I bought a TP-Link router with two USB ports. I have connected the printer to the router's USB port and installed what's known as USB Printer Controller (comes from TP-Link).

As a result I have a normal (non-Wi-Fi) printer connected to 802.11ac router that I can use as a "wireless" printer using 802.11ac as Wi-Fi. Overall it's most likely cheaper and also a very robust straight forward solution. You might want to consider it.

 

That's not a bad idea. I read many people complaining about the Intel AC-7260 adapter. Has it been stabilized? Is it the best option on the client side at the moment?

 

That's a trick question - it has been kinda stabilized but it's not there yet as far as 2.4GHz band is concerned (and I suspect it will never be) but at the same time it's doing better than it used to, and if 5GHz 802.11ac is what you're after it's not only doing good but it's pretty much the only option.

 

Sorry for reviving my old thread, but this is relevant. I just picked up the ASUS-AC68U for $25 from TMobile and flashed it with Merlin's firmware. I am posting my results here as a data point.

I did the setup last night - here are my results. As part of the upgrade I swapped out my wireless adapter from Intel N-2200 (802.11N, Single Band) to N-6205 (802.11N, Dual Band) to be able to take advantage of the 5Ghz band. My laptop's whitelist does not permit any 802.11AC adapters. After each configuration change I performed 3 measurements:

1) Right clicking on the connection in Windows, selecting status and recording the nominal speed listed there.
2) Speedtest.net upload and download metrics
3) Copying a file from my NAS (wired to the Fios Actiontek router).

Here are my results, all numbers are listed in Mbps (that's megabits, divide by 8 to get megabytes). Tests were done in a busy apartment (about 15 other networks around me, all on 2.4Ghz). Laptop was about 15 ft away from the router, but not line of sight. 2.4 Ghz channel was set to channel 11 / 40 Mhz width. 5.0 Ghz channel was set to auto channel / 80 Mhz width. Legacy (b/g) support was disabled. I am on the 50 down / 50 up Fios plan.

Setup ........................................... Windows ..........Speedtest (Down/Up).............NAS (Down)
Actiontek + N2200 (2.4 Ghz)..........72.......................24/33....................................24
Asus + N2200 (2.4 Ghz),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,72.......................50/51....................................52
Asus + N6205 (2.4 Ghz).................150.....................48/45....................................48
Asus + N6205 (5.0 Ghz).................150.....................58/65....................................62

If I can get a hold of a laptop with an 802.11AC adapter this weekend, I'll repeat the test , and will measure NAS upload rates as well. I will also try the NAS wired to the Asus router.

Conclusions:
Asus router beats the pants off the Fios router. 5Ghz has higher throughput than 2.4Ghz (either due to channel width or congestion). Wireless copying from NAS was identical to internet download speeds, so I believe NAS copying is bound by my wireless speeds, and wiring the NAS directly to the Asus router should make no difference. Interestingly my speedtest results exceed my Fios plan limits. That makes me wonder if there is a hard cap at all.

I would have expected the nominal speed in windows for this adapter to be 300 Mbps, so I think it's only using 1 antenna. I also will try to connect one of the other unused antennae (I believe meant for WWAN use) in my laptop to the N-6205 card and see if that makes a difference.

Does anyone know for certain what the 3 antennae inside a Lenovo X230 are used for. The color are grey (was connected to my N-2200), red (capped, not connected) and blue (capped, not connected)?