Network driving me loco.....

whiterebel

I would really appreciate some help from someone who knows about networks, I just can't seem to get this one running properly......

My setup:
MacBook Air 2012 running 10.8.4, MacBook Pro 2010, iPad 2, iPad 1, 3 iPhones, Kindles around the house, not everything on the go at the same time.

Upstairs room for phone socket
had a TP Link Router supposedly 300MB/s model Router On the MBA it only showed as 150MB/s link.
Have now changed to Sky, disabled WiFi on the Sky router
I have the Sky router plugged in to Devolo 85MB/s Powerlines, and have a few of these around the house for PS3, cameras etc.

My office
Mac Mini 2.3GHz i5 8GB Ram as main work machine running 10.7.5 wired into the switch below:
I have a Synology DS212J wired into one of the Powerlines via the unmanaged Gigabit switch Switch
DS212J is the TimeMachine backup, set to run every 12 hours.
LG NAS also plugged into the switch
IP camera also plugged in.


Downstairs front room
Same switch as above - Plugged into it:
Samsung TV,
Samsung Blu-Ray Player
Sky+ Box
PS3
Brand new Airport Express - Now the MBA shows a link at 300MB/s

Downstairs other front room a PS3 which shows faster speed on WiFi than it does using one of the Devolo Powerlines?

I know very little about network, its a bit of a mystery. The transfer speed between Mini and MBA is abysmal. AE shows 2 networks 5GHz and 2.4.
Copying from MBA to Mac Mini is unbelievably bad it shows 3 hours for a 1GB file. Mini to MBA is better, but not much, maybe an hour for the same file. Copying to or from the DS212J can be slow as well, but not as bad as the Mini/MBA.
If I'm copying a file to or from the DS212J and playing a video from it at the same time, the Video will stop. Thats playing the file directly using VLC, not streaming using Plex or anything else.

AFAIK, its all CAT 5 cables I'm using. I've tried using Wireshark, but I might as well be looking up a cow's ass.....
Running Speedy net at the moment
MBA to Mini plugged into office switch 500Mb file 45 seconds latency .40ms Network speed 92.67Mbps
Mini to MBA plugged into office switch 500Mb file 46 seconds latency .87ms Network speed 89.31Mbps
MBA (Wifi) to Mini plugged into office switch 500Mb file takes forever latency 14.07ms Network speed 4.21Mbps
Mini to MBA (Wifi) Mini plugged into office switch 500Mb file takes forever latency 129ms Network speed 3,5 Mbps
2.16GB file Mini to DS212J NAS both wired 4min 4sec.
2.16GB file Mini to LG NAS both wired 2min 10sec.

This seems to back up a lot of what people are saying that the copying isn't right on the DS212J as its near twice as quick with the LG box. Mind you they both seem very sluggish when clicking on a folder, or opening up the first folder on the drive after switching it on. I've cut down from thousands of files folders on the LG and organised it into about 220 folders. There are only about 10 folders on the DS212J.
Both switches show green lights on all connections, so no 10/100MBs devices.

I put the two MacBooks, Pro and Air running Speedy Net sending files to each other and they were tranfering on WiFi on 40ishMbps, which seems reasonable.
I'm ordering new 500MB/s TP Link powerlines to replace the 85s, as I was thinking theres a bottleneck on the Ethernet.
Thanks in advance for any help with this, I really appreciate it,

WR

smee again

Run a few cat5/6 cables, getting any sort of transfer rate over homeplugs or wireless will always be hit or miss, they both suffer from the same drawbacks. The speeds quoted are highly optimistic, ie only achieved once, in a lab and in one direction only. File transfer is two way traffic (TCP). Only a cable can send and receive at the same time as it has separate pairs of strands for transmit and recieve (full duplex).

whiterebel

smee again wrote: »

Run a few cat5/6 cables, getting any sort of transfer rate over homeplugs or wireless will always be hit or miss, they both suffer from the same drawbacks. The speeds quoted are highly optimistic, ie only achieved once, in a lab and in one direction only. File transfer is two way traffic (TCP). Only a cable can send and receive at the same time as it has separate pairs of strands for transmit and recieve (full duplex).

Not really an option to go wiring up the whole house.

smee again

whiterebel wrote: »

Not really an option to go wiring up the whole house.

It's the only option that's guaranteed to work and futureproof your house. A decent 1080p encoded .mkv will hit 30mbit+ bandwidth. Even the best wireless "n" router will struggle to maintain a youtube stream to another device when this is transferring.

whiterebel

Right, in light of no useful advice, went off and played with the setup for a couple of days.
Plugged the Airport Express directly into the router, rather than via Powerline downstairs.
Got new 500Mbps Powerlines and installed them.
Checked Ethernet cabling and got rid of Cat5, making sure I had Cat5E or better.

Massive improvement all round, probably not as fast as it can be, but much, much faster. I may play around with it a bit more to see if I can get some more speed out of it.

smee again

whiterebel wrote: »

Right, in light of no useful advice

WTF?

The day will come that you'll be sorry you didn't run a cable, you are already maxing a homeplug. Unlike a cable that has separate strands for send and receive, homeplugs are half duplex and suffer from the same drawbacks as wireless. A cat5 cable does gigabit (1000mbit) full duplex, no-brainer.

whiterebel

smee again wrote: »

WTF?

The day will come that you'll be sorry you didn't run a cable, you are already maxing a homeplug. Unlike a cable that has separate strands for send and receive, homeplugs are half duplex and suffer from the same drawbacks as wireless. A cat5 cable does gigabit (1000mbit) full duplex, no-brainer.

If you're going to ignore "not an option", then its not useful to keep going on about the same thing.

smee again

whiterebel wrote: »

If you're going to ignore "not an option", then its not useful to keep going on about the same thing.

Guaranteed, within 5 years you'll be running cables as our bandwidth needs explode. It's nearly always possible to run a cable, put some thought into it, take it outside, hide it under the plaster plinth, behind downpipe, through attic, under carpet along edge trim, up conduit with tv coax. etc. It's also only now becoming affordable to send TV around your house over cat5 rather than coax, whereas before it cost thousands. Converged networks are the future, with wireless just for mobility for devices that need mobility.

Calibos

I've never seen such an apt username

Attreu

In the future you should be able to do this with Wireless as 802.11ac aka Gigabit WiFi (New Macbook Pro has it) takes off but for now but your homeplug options sounds like your best bet and similar to what I have going, although I just have the 200Mbps ones.