Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How?-Faster Ethernet Transferring Speed

R

rekhyt

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 20, 2008
1,127
78
Part of the old MR guard.
My friend and I decided to use ethernet wires to transfer files on our Macs instead of USBs last month.

We soon found a limitation of 10MB/s on the wires. I searched to see if there was 100MB/s ethernet wires but had found none; However, I had found there was such technology as the Gigabit Ethernet (?), but it requires a card.

Is the 10MB/s limitation from the MacBook/Pro or from the wire?

Thanks,
R
 
100Mb = 12.5MB

Speed of internet and Ethernet is in bits while your Mac shows speeds in bytes. If your Mac/cable can't support more than 100Mb/s, then 10MB/s is normal
 
What year is your Macbook Pro? And what year/make/model is the other computer? Both computers -SHOULD- have Gigabit ethernet in them. If one of them has 100 MegaBIT ethernet though then your stuck - you can only go as fast as the slowest computer.
 
Hellhammer said:
100Mb = 12.5MB

Speed of internet and Ethernet is in bits while your Mac shows speeds in bytes. If your Mac/cable can't support more than 100Mb/s, then 10MB/s is normal
Click to expand...

Hmm... I thought 100MB equaled in reality, 100MB/s.

Tower-Union said:
What year is your Macbook Pro? And what year/make/model is the other computer? Both computers -SHOULD- have Gigabit ethernet in them. If one of them has 100 MegaBIT ethernet though then your stuck - you can only go as fast as the slowest computer.
Click to expand...

MacBook Pro (Unibody 2009.), and my friend's is a MacBook Pro 13". How fast should we be getting with an ethernet wire?
 
rekhyt said:
Hmm... I thought 100MB equaled in reality, 100MB/s.
Click to expand...

Mb is megabits. MB is megabytes, there are 8 bits in a byte, so 100Mb=12.5MB. And that's the absolute maximum, you'll never hit it in reality.

MacBook Pro (Unibody 2009.), and my friend's is a MacBook Pro 13". How fast should we be getting with an ethernet wire?
Click to expand...

Depends on the ethernet cable. I'm guessing you weren't using a Cat5e cable because both of those have gigabit ethernet, or 1000Mb/s, for a max theoretical transfer rate of 125MB/s.
 
Even then, that's the data transfer rate of the protocol, not your actual data. Your data is wrapped in packet headers, checksums, and other control information which forms some overhead in the transfer.

Also, for similar reasons, transferring lots of smaller files is slower than transferring one big file, even if the total amount of data is the same.
 
yg17 said:
Mb is megabits. MB is megabytes, there are 8 bits in a byte, so 100Mb=12.5MB. And that's the absolute maximum, you'll never hit it in reality.

Depends on the ethernet cable. I'm guessing you weren't using a Cat5e cable because both of those have gigabit ethernet, or 1000Mb/s, for a max theoretical transfer rate of 125MB/s.
Click to expand...

How would we increase our transferring speed? We had been basically using normal LAN wires that are usually used when you get a router, so I guess that was one factor that could have imposed the limitation.

Would acquiring a Cat5e cable speed up the transfer?
 
rekhyt said:
How would we increase our transferring speed? We had been basically using normal LAN wires that are usually used when you get a router, so I guess that was one factor that could have imposed the limitation.

Would acquiring a Cat5e cable speed up the transfer?
Click to expand...

Actually, even if your Mac is capable of Gigabit ethernet, it might not be configured for it. So first, go into your Network Settings, select your Ethernet interface, then click the Advanced button. Then pick the Ethernet tab. There you can see the settings, including the Speed and Duplex. Basically make sure it is set to the highest speed. You may need to physically disconnect the cables and reconnect for the cards to renegotiate the settings.

On my Mac, it would appear my default is 100 Mbps, which is fine since I am connected to the Internet via a DSL modem.
 
Also your router is probably 100MB, so if your running through there you're bottle necking yourselves. Just connect the two computers together directly with one wire.
 
Lot of people have gone faster... Me no, but I do regulary transfer 3-15 Gb files at work over 100 mbit ethernet
 
Also depends on whether you're connecting the computers directly with the same cable or going through a switch.

If going directly between with a single cable, make you get what's called a crossover cable. It makes things easier.

If you're going through a switch, make sure the switch is capable of Gigabit speeds for fastest speeds.

Either way, I would suggest Category 6 (or even better, 6a) cabling. Maybe a little more expensive than 5e, but they're made with higher standards. I'm not sure how much of a difference they'll make, but I personally like having the highest quality available.

As others have mentioned, there is a difference between MB (upper case B) and Mb (lower case b). Basically, 1 MB = 8 Mb.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back