Why ethernet?

[therealseebs]

So, copying a file to a Windows laptop over wifi. File's a bit over a gigabyte.

After a bit over a minute, I gave up, shut down wireless, grabbed an ethernet cable from a desktop which wasn't running, plugged it into the laptop, and reran the copy. It finished in 17 seconds. It had an estimated 3 minutes remaining over wireless, after a minute or so of copying.

This is why some of us want Ethernet.

 

[Exile714]

Were you using 802.11AC?

 

[Nde]

I still uses ethernet here with my Mac. I use Wifi for MacOS (unfiltered Internet.) Launch Vmware Fusion and have my Windows 10 use ethernet to work (filtered internet.) Best of both world.

Now I can stream music, iMessage, unrestricted internet and be able to conform with work internet policy.

 

[rdrr]

Were you using 802.11AC?

Doesn't matter, ethernet will always beat the current wifi. Wifi still has latency, interference, and collisions.

 

[BrettApple]

Yep. I have an 802.11 AC based UniFi AP AC Pro sitting maybe 5 feet away from my desk on the ceiling and it's still a lot slower than Ethernet on my 2015 MBA. The problem is when I run my external monitor and I am stuck with wifi only due to there only being one thunderbolt port. Very annoying.

Heavy lifting is done on our desktops anyway (iMac/Mac Pros) thankfully they still have Ethernet on them. We can easily sustain 100 MB/s transfer speeds over gigabit Ethernet with our switches.

 

[cerberusss]

Yep. I have an 802.11 AC based UniFi AP AC Pro sitting maybe 5 feet away from my desk on the ceiling and it's still a lot slower than Ethernet on my 2015 MBA. The problem is when I run my external monitor and I am stuck with wifi only due to there only being one thunderbolt port.

I use the USB-Ethernet adapter on my MBA. Yes it's only 100Mbit but it's still more reliable and faster than the wifi in my office...

I am looking forward to the days when MacOS can bind wifi and ethernet together, just like the iPhone can bind wifi and 4G together.
[doublepost=1478897286][/doublepost]

This is why some of us want Ethernet.

So true.

Our office has a WhatsApp group. Everyday there's someone that asks "why the Internet is slow". It's never someone hooked up via ethernet.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Connecting a laptop directly into a modem's ethernet port is a useful diagnostic step to rule out WiFi issues.

 

[Exile714]

To each their own issues I guess, but I can get more than 750Mbps on my router and that's plenty for me. It's faster than my NAS drives, and fast enough to stream 4K videos all over my house.

 

[Howard2k]

To each their own issues I guess, but I can get more than 750Mbps on my router and that's plenty for me. It's faster than my NAS drives, and fast enough to stream 4K videos all over my house.

Are you talking about throughput or bandwidth? Totally different animals. As noted above, Wifi uses CSMA/CA so it's always going to be the poor cousin for large transfers. I use it at home to talk to my NAS, but there's no doubt that Gigabit Ethernet is faster.

 

[dyn]

Besides things like speed and reliability there is another thing that puts cabled ethernet over wifi (which btw is also ethernet): VLANs. With wifi you can only put the SSID into 1 specific VLAN but with a cable you can actually put it in various VLANs. Most people are not going to use something like this and if they do it usually is just 1 VLAN anyway but there are use cases where you actually need to put a machine into multiple VLANs (benefit of this is that you don't need a router to route between VLANs and firewall to make sure not everything gets routed).

 

[therealseebs]

Faster than NAS drives sounds convenient, but I'm not using NAS drives, I'm using internal PCIe SSDs, which are quite a bit faster. So I am absolutely waiting on the network more than I am waiting on anything else.

 

[Exile714]

Faster than NAS drives sounds convenient, but I'm not using NAS drives, I'm using internal PCIe SSDs, which are quite a bit faster. So I am absolutely waiting on the network more than I am waiting on anything else.

There's no denying that Ethernet is faster and has better latency, but I'm at a loss about this file transfer idea. I can move 1GB in less than 15 seconds from one SSD to another (edit: over WiFi). Your initial claim that a 1GB file took upwards of 4 minutes sounds like an internet connection issue more than anything else.

Unless you're playing a game (latency) or transferring super-massive files between 2 SSD drives where seconds matter, I don't see an issue with WiFi only. Now, this is assuming a well-constructed 802.11AC network.

I'm not saying Ethernet isn't better for some uses, just questioning the specific scenario you mentioned. 4 minutes for 1GB just strikes me as something you can fix without Ethernet.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Ethernet has its uses. However, for a laptop not sure it makes sense.

 

[protoxx]

The problem is when I run my external monitor and I am stuck with wifi only due to there only being one thunderbolt port. Very annoying.

Get a Thunderbolt dock. Then you can have ethernet, display port, usb, and more ports. Less annoying.

 

[MH01]

Ethernet has its uses. However, for a desktop not sure it makes sense.

It makes the most sense for a desktop.

I assume you meant laptop, in which case where Ethernet is available, it's superior. WIFI is for portability and convience , if you are working on a desk , wired is an advantage over wifi. Ethernet works with all....wifi is dodgey at times with certain routers

 

[hans1972]

So, copying a file to a Windows laptop over wifi. File's a bit over a gigabyte.
This is why some of us want Ethernet.

I just copied 983Mb from one source to another. Both wireless. 21 seconds.

 

[Abazigal]

There's something called a flash drive ....

 

[ip67]

Love me some 10Gbps Cat. 6a/7 ethernet. Yes please.

 

[protoxx]

If wireless is faster than wired, then floppy disks are faster than hard disks that are faster than ssd storage.

 

[AdonisSMU]

It makes the most sense for a desktop.

I assume you meant laptop, in which case where Ethernet is available, it's superior. WIFI is for portability and convience , if you are working on a desk , wired is an advantage over wifi. Ethernet works with all....wifi is dodgey at times with certain routers

I misspoke. I meant laptop.

 

[Abazigal]

It makes the most sense for a desktop.

I assume you meant laptop, in which case where Ethernet is available, it's superior. WIFI is for portability and convience , if you are working on a desk , wired is an advantage over wifi. Ethernet works with all....wifi is dodgey at times with certain routers

My iMac runs on wifi, and my internet connection is fast and stable enough that I don't even bother with an ethernet connection.

 

[iizmoo]

802.11ac very dependent on what you have. There's 802.11ac 600Mbps, and there's this https://www.amazon.com/RT-AC5300-Wi...d=1478929631&sr=8-5&keywords=802.11ac+triband monster.

Aside from the wireless, your file server and Mac configuration also make a big difference. Properly configured on a 867Mbps Wifi speed, I can roll around 70-80 MBps transfer over SAMBA. The limitations are all because it's less than 1000Mbps Ethernet, if I roll with a faster ac on laptop and router then that can easily run faster than Ethernet. Default settings for both net around 20-30MBps transfer and it took a lot of config tweaking to get my transfer rate to max out.

Ethernet max out at 1000Mbps, the only thing going for it is connection isolation, so you don't have multiple connections of a switch running into each other as much. But if you're at home and the only one, and has a newer Mac with faster WiFi, it can easily outrun Ethernet.

 

[throAU]

Doesn't matter, ethernet will always beat the current wifi. Wifi still has latency, interference, and collisions.

"It depends".

But yes, ethernet with no collisions via a switch is faster when both wifi and cable are similar speeds.

A lot less convenient though, and sounds like the OPs wifi is particularly bad.

I use WIFI most of the time, but yeah, if i have bulk transfers to do i'll still break out the dongle, which remains connected to an ethernet cable at my desk.

 

[Howard2k]

802.11ac very dependent on what you have. There's 802.11ac 600Mbps, and there's this https://www.amazon.com/RT-AC5300-Wi...d=1478929631&sr=8-5&keywords=802.11ac+triband monster.

Aside from the wireless, your file server and Mac configuration also make a big difference. Properly configured on a 867Mbps Wifi speed, I can roll around 70-80 MBps transfer over SAMBA. The limitations are all because it's less than 1000Mbps Ethernet, if I roll with a faster ac on laptop and router then that can easily run faster than Ethernet. Default settings for both net around 20-30MBps transfer and it took a lot of config tweaking to get my transfer rate to max out.

Ethernet max out at 1000Mbps, the only thing going for it is connection isolation, so you don't have multiple connections of a switch running into each other as much. But if you're at home and the only one, and has a newer Mac with faster WiFi, it can easily outrun Ethernet.

What? Ethernet currently runs at 100Gb/s.

 

[throAU]

What? Ethernet currently runs at 100Gb/s.

Not really.

Certainly not out of your laptop it doesn't

Current commonly available high performance server variant of ethernet is 40 Gigabit and the NICs are super expensive. Fibre only and about as expensive as a Macbook Air - depending on the distance the SFP is specced for.