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Airdrop speed slow?

E

enigma2k

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 12, 2010
189
58
Hi,

I am using 2 MBA 2011 to test sending files with Airdrop between them and I am only getting a speed between 10-30kb. So even some small files take very long to transfer.
Shouldn't it be fast since it is using WLAN?
 
enigma2k said:
Hi,

I am using 2 MBA 2011 to test sending files with Airdrop between them and I am only getting a speed between 10-30kb. So even some small files take very long to transfer.
Shouldn't it be fast since it is using WLAN?
Click to expand...

not really sure how AirDrop works because for some reason it only works over wifi. I was annoyed to see it wasn't on my Mac Pro, but it is on my mac mini....why wifi only...dumb.
 
It requires some hardware support in the wireless card. That's not present on the older machine's wireless cards. Regarding the speed issues you are having, I'm not sure what to tell you since I have not tested it at all.
 
DustinT said:
It requires some hardware support in the wireless card.
Click to expand...

I heard that was just for Ad-Hoc (sans router) but with a router present this wasn't an issue. I could be wrong but for this case the OP said he was going from a 2011 Air to another 2011 Air so this probably doesn't even apply.

As for the OP my only experience with a file transfer was from a MBPro to a MBAir and it went rather quickly even for a large file.

I'm curious to know if the WiFi requirement is true and thus alienating any MacPro users? That could possibly be fixed in a later release just strange it wouldn't just use the router and existing network.
 
Last edited:
The transfer speed is not fast enough, but acceptable... however, it take around 30 seconds to "find" the other machine (MBP 09 <--> MBA 11) and I cannot do anything before they appeared...

It seems Dropbox is more useful if you own both machine...
 
I was under the impression that AirDrop used Bluetooth, not WiFi, the former of which is far, far slower than the latter.
 
I Use Airdrop to transfer large files between my 15" MBP and my 11" MBA and I find the speeds to be fantastic. I transferred a 3.5GB video file between the two in about 5 minutes. I was VERY pleasantly surprised. LOVE Airdrop!
 
how is it possible then that my Airdrop speed between 2 2011 MBA is so slow?
 
I tried air drop once and the speed was slow. Tried it again between the same two computers and it was speedy fast. The two attempts were probably two minutes apart. It was weird.
 
I have only got about 140kb/s maximum. I wonder how to get 9-10MB/s with Airdrop.
 
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