802.11ac speed?

[2ms]

Can anyone tell me whether or not 802.11ac is fast enough to provide the capability of using one computer as a central storage server to all other Apple devices in the house?

For example, if I got a new iMac, would it be fast enough that I could store all music and movies on the iMac and just access them from my iPad and Macbook Retina through wireless networking rather than having files redundantly located on all my devices?

I tried using wireless N this way but it just wasn't fast enough.

It would be immensely appealing to be able to have all my smaller devices be kept lean and mean and all my big media files located on desktop with big storage.

 

[m98custom1212]

How big are the files? What are you trying to do? Edit pictures? Watch Videos?

 

[paulrbeers]

Can anyone tell me whether or not 802.11ac is fast enough to provide the capability of using one computer as a central storage server to all other Apple devices in the house?

For example, if I got a new iMac, would it be fast enough that I could store all music and movies on the iMac and just access them from my iPad and Macbook Retina through wireless networking rather than having files redundantly located on all my devices?

I tried using wireless N this way but it just wasn't fast enough.

It would be immensely appealing to be able to have all my smaller devices be kept lean and mean and all my big media files located on desktop with big storage.

The problem is probably more to do with wifi signal strength than speed. Technically even N should be good up to 450mbps. Even Blu-Ray reads are only up to 36mbps (1x blu-ray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray) which means even wireless N should be good upto 12 streams. However, if "real" life you only get about half the bandwidth when even close to the wifi access point due to encryption, packet loss, etc. Still Even at 225mbps you would still be able to watch 6 bluray via wifi.

The real problem is quality of signal/signal strength. Those numbers are only valid when close to the access point. As you move farther and father away your bandwidth is reduced. If you added additional access points, you might find then your bandwidth on wireless N is enough. Just adding wireless AC wouldn't necessarily fix your problem with signal strength. Yes it should help, but there are no guarantees that you will be able to stream large files suddenly by just switching your main access point.