Airport Extreme vs. D-Link

jazer said:

My current results with the D-Link 655 are:
MacBook 2,1 => 3-4MB/s
MacBookPro 5,1 => 5-6MB/s

Click to expand...

How did you do the measurements? I just installed a new Dual Band Extreme and I can measure performance, but I would prefer to use the same method for testing that you used.

Okay, here are my highly unscientific results ... my configurations were:

All tests on 5Ghz "n" with wide channels enabled

Config #1:
750GB USB drive plugged into a dual band Airport Extreme
Apple Mini plugged into a Gigi Switch, plugged into an Airport Express "n", the Express was configured as a ProxySTA mode attached to the 5Ghz "n" network

Config #2
750GB USB drive plugged into a dual band Airport Extreme
Apple Mini plugged into a 1T Time Capsule extending the 5Ghz network

Config #3
750GB USB drive plugged into a dual band Airport Extreme
Early 2008 17" MacBook Pro connected to the 5Ghz "extended" network.

Test procedure:

1. Browse to the USB drive hanging off the Dual Band extreme
2. Copy a 5GB movie file (m4v) from the USB drive to the local desktop
3. Observe the "in" network reading on iStat Pro Widget

Throughput:

Config #1: 3.6MB/s
Config #2: 10.4MB/s
Config #3: 5MB/s

I also tried Config #2, but using the MBP instead of the mini and got similar speeds. The Airport utility reports the "rate" from the TC @ 216. Previously with the Express, the rate was reported as 162. So, I am concluding that the TC is doing a better job than the Express at throughput on the 5Ghz network.

I don't know if this helps or not ... I think your config is closer to #3 and I am guessing that you will not see any significant change in throughput if you switched network devices. I use the Express + Gig switch and now the TC as a way to wire all the stuff in my home office together at Gig speeds for file sharing/printer sharing, while providing access to the rest of the world via wireless. I am very pleased with the speed up from the Express to the TC. I am also glad to get rid of the Gig switch because it was periodically going wacko and required a power cycle.

Good luck ...