Airport Extreme hard disk speed

[brilliantthings]

I have a usb 3.0 hard disk attached to my Airport Extreme 5th gen and it gets read and write speeds no faster than 5 MB/sec. That seems ridiculously slow. Is a hard disk attached to a 6th gen Airport Extreme any faster?

Btw - the network runs at lightning speeds otherwise and the hard disk has speeds of 100 MB/sec when connected directly to my MBA.

 

[SBlue1]

Airport Extreme has just USB2.

 

[brilliantthings]

Sure. But that doesnt explain why I only get 4 MB/sec. That's much slower than USB 2.0 speeds. The transfer rate is limited by the "CPU" in the Extreme. Just wondering if the 6th gen is any better.

 

[Altemose]

Sure. But that doesnt explain why I only get 4 MB/sec. That's much slower than USB 2.0 speeds. The transfer rate is limited by the "CPU" in the Extreme. Just wondering if the 6th gen is any better.

Even my 5th gen. Extreme does transfers faster than that. I think you have something else going on here.

 

[Weaselboy]

Sure. But that doesnt explain why I only get 4 MB/sec. That's much slower than USB 2.0 speeds. The transfer rate is limited by the "CPU" in the Extreme. Just wondering if the 6th gen is any better.

There have been lots of posts over the years about this and yours is normal and the speed with these is just bad.

I have seen forum posts with the new 6th gen. showing close to 20MBps speeds, so yes the new one is better.

 

[Altemose]

There have been lots of posts over the years about this and yours is normal and the speed with these is just bad.



I have seen forum posts with the new 6th gen. showing close to 20MBps speeds, so yes the new one is better.

I get closer to 25 MBps on my new 6th Gen. I got 10-15 MBps on the older 5th generation though.

 

[brilliantthings]

Interesting. Could it have something to do with having a non-powered portable hard drive attached? I have tried it with a powered usb hub, though, and got the same results.

 

[Weaselboy]

Interesting. Could it have something to do with having a non-powered portable hard drive attached? I have tried it with a powered usb hub, though, and got the same results.

Nah... those things just have lousy drive speeds. If you search the forums there are quit a few comments about it. Even the brand new 6th gen. has slower speeds than many modern routers.

 

[rgarjr]

Interesting. Could it have something to do with having a non-powered portable hard drive attached? I have tried it with a powered usb hub, though, and got the same results.

I think it has to do with the USB controller chip that's bottleneck'ing. You're better off getting a NAS.

 

[ColdCase]

If you have a need for speed, you either need a higher end ($$$) NAS or a mini server. My mini server does close to 60 MBps Black Magic where my lower end Synology NAS does less than 30 MBps... both of which are a much higher data rate than USB drives hanging off of extremes. TimeCapsules seem to be a bit better as I can get 15+ MBps.

I am connected wirelessly from my rMBP to a latest gen TimeCapsule router and then the mini, Synology, TimeCasule NAS are hard wired to the Time Capsule router.

Your mileage may vary.....