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Copying files between two laptops - very slow using Bonjour!
- Thread starter vgoklani
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Bonjour is the method by which the two laptops find each other, but first they need to be connected. Do you have a cable running from one to the other, or are you using wireless?
EDIT: Just thought of something. Are you getting your terms confused? You're not talking about the little B in the menu bar are you? If so, that's Bluetooth which is very low bandwidth. Data transfers over that are really meant for putting small files on your mobile phone.
EDIT: Just thought of something. Are you getting your terms confused? You're not talking about the little B in the menu bar are you? If so, that's Bluetooth which is very low bandwidth. Data transfers over that are really meant for putting small files on your mobile phone.
OK, the OP is gonna need more detail that that...bodeh6 said:
vgoklani, you can use an Ethernet cable to hook the Ethernet ports of the two machines together. Then you can do exactly what you have been doing, and it will run much faster.
Alternatively, if you have a Firewire cable, you can
1) turn both machines off
2) turn on the machine with the SOURCE data, holding down the "T" key while you power up the machine, until you get a screen with a Firewire symbol on it.
3) turn on the machine that will be the RECIPIENT of the data, and let it boot as normal.
This is called Firewire Target Disk Mode, and if you have done this successfully, on the desktop of the recipient machine you will see a hard disk icon on your screen which is the hard disk of the source machine. Then, you go into that hard disk and drag what you want to the hard disk of the recipient machine.
vgoklani said:
Yes it will. The two ethernet ports will negotiate the maximum speed they both support when the connection first goes live (when you plug the cable into both laptops). Since they both support Gigabit, they will settle on it.
Make sure though that you get an ethernet cable that is rated as either Cat5e or Cat6 and uses all four pairs. Most ethernet cables that you buy are rated at that these days, but there are still some of the older Cat5 ones around, and they don't support Gigabit. Neither do ethernet cables where only two pairs are wired.
Don't worry if you don't quite understand the above paragraph. It will make perfect sense to the people in the shop where you buy the cable
vgoklani said:
Bonjour is ONLY a TCP discovery, it is NOT a file transfer "method". Did you specifically set one laptop up to "share" it's wireless internet connection? If not, then most likely, as noted by other previously, you were connected via Bluetooth. Please detail the exact steps you took to "established a network connection between two macbook pros (using Bonjour)", and how large the file(s) was (were) that you were trying to transfer.
gekko513 said:
I'm pretty sure he means Bonjour (formerly "Rendezvous").
As for the OP question, Im not sure at what rate you should be able to transfer (as I've never done it), although a direct physical connection is sure to be faster.
I found the other laptop using Bonjour, ie: by going to the Networks option in the finder...bluetooth was turned off on both machines, so presumably, the transfers were being done over WiFi..The file size was 10G (very large image files)
Ah, then it was likely to be AFP between the two, over wireless.
Well, assuming you could get the MAX theoretical speed out of a wifi-wifi connection, at BEST you'd get 6.75MB per second. Which means a 10GB file would take ~25 minutes. And since you're not likely to get the max theoritical speed, I'd expect it to take 2x as long.
Now if you didn't get 802.11g speeds (54Mbps) and somehow ended up with 802.11b speeds (11Mbps), it would take ~121 minutes at MAX theoretical speed, and more likely 2x as long.
As noted, physical connections will always be faster (for the technological moment).
Well, assuming you could get the MAX theoretical speed out of a wifi-wifi connection, at BEST you'd get 6.75MB per second. Which means a 10GB file would take ~25 minutes. And since you're not likely to get the max theoritical speed, I'd expect it to take 2x as long.
Now if you didn't get 802.11g speeds (54Mbps) and somehow ended up with 802.11b speeds (11Mbps), it would take ~121 minutes at MAX theoretical speed, and more likely 2x as long.
As noted, physical connections will always be faster (for the technological moment).
thanks for the estimate, I am getting a time scale of (roughly) four days. My main question is that I am also using the airport for internet access (via WiFi from a central router). is this the reason why the transfer rates are so slow. Admittedly, I could just run a test myself, but the second laptop is not here.
Thanks, I'm well aware of what Bonjour is..
Bonjour is a dynamic device discovery service via TCP. It has nothing to do with assigning IP addresses. That is for a DHCP server, or failing having one available, the computer will self assign an IP addresses (169.254.x.x). Bonjour is used to find Bonjour enabled devices. Any subsequent actions (printing, file sharing, etc) are taken over by OTHER appropriate services.
As I said, previously,
Testing of speed will be up to you or others who have multiple AE equipped Macs and creating a wifi-wifi network and testing file transfers. As noted by others, this is not the best way to transfer files. I imagine there would be much overhead involved in error correction and waiting on packets that arrive out of order when using wifi to transfer large files.
Bonjour is a dynamic device discovery service via TCP. It has nothing to do with assigning IP addresses. That is for a DHCP server, or failing having one available, the computer will self assign an IP addresses (169.254.x.x). Bonjour is used to find Bonjour enabled devices. Any subsequent actions (printing, file sharing, etc) are taken over by OTHER appropriate services.
As I said, previously,
which you seem to agree upon.yellow said:
Testing of speed will be up to you or others who have multiple AE equipped Macs and creating a wifi-wifi network and testing file transfers. As noted by others, this is not the best way to transfer files. I imagine there would be much overhead involved in error correction and waiting on packets that arrive out of order when using wifi to transfer large files.
direct USB connection...
between two laptops, possible or not?
I was wondering if I can connect two laptops by way of USB port to transfer from one to the other (kind of like the old host/slave setup)...
between two laptops, possible or not?
I was wondering if I can connect two laptops by way of USB port to transfer from one to the other (kind of like the old host/slave setup)...
DeVizardofOZ said:
This is not possible. Not on a (PPC) Mac. It's wifi, wired ethernet, firewire, or nothing. I cannot speak for the MacTels, I'm unsure if things have changed, I don't believe so. While you can now BOOT a MacTel with a USB device, I don't think you can connect 2 MacTels and file transfer.
vgoklani said:
I'm strictly theorizing on why it was so slow. Wifi is slow, no doubt, slower than any other physical connection. Added to that, the possibility of massive amounts of error correction during the transfer. Added to that, it's a very large file. Added to that, the estimated file transfer time is just that, an estimate and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
I don't have multiple wifi equipped Macs, so I cannot test this. That will be up to you, but many of us would be interested in seeing what your methods of research and conclusions would be.
