Home network file transfer speeds.

Izanagi-Okami

So, I'm experiencing some weird and unexplainable variation in my file transfers over my home network. Basically I'm either seeing ~3MB/s or ~11MB/s and as far as I can see other network traffic makes no difference. For instance I can be downloading a file at my max download speed (1.2 MB/s) off the internet and still see the 11MB/s file transfer speed whereas other times when I'm doing nothing at all with my network but transferring a file (The same type and size files even. Mostly I transfer quite large files but the behavior occurs over all file sizes.) to the same location from the same location and see 3MB/s. Also I do not use torrents so upload variations shouldn't be coming into play here.

Anyone have any idea what may be causing these frequent slower file transfers? 3MB/s speeds are far more common then 11MB/s speeds. My source PC is connected via wire to an apple time capsule with up to date firmware and my target computer is connected via wireless N to the router. I doubt there is anyone else stealing my bandwidth because I use WPA2 security on my network and I'm the only one with the key. Both are running up to date windows 7.

khain

It's based on the speed of the wireless network and that fluctuates based on other people's usage of the band and various other random factors. The reason you don't see a difference when you download a file is because I assume you're using the computer that is connected to your modem via ethernet. As shown in the diagram below if you go from A to M your limit is going to the speed of your internet, A to B is limited by the wireless network, but you can cap both your internet and the wireless connection to A since your ethernet connection is faster than the both combined.


ethernet WiFi
|<

---

>|<

---

>|
A

---

M

---

B

Izanagi-Okami

Oh. That makes sense. Thanks! So what you're saying is I need some sort of signal jammer for that wavelength to encourage people to stop using their devices attached to it and only turn it off prior to a file transfer!

That was a joke. Seriously, thanks for clearing that up though.