Problems when connecting two Macs via Thunderbolt Bridge

[hajime]

Hi, on both Mac, I have set up Thunderbolt Bridge under Network. They are both under the "Self assigned IP" status with a yellow dot on the left. I have also enable file sharing on Mac1. I clicked on Thunderbolt Bridge and obtained the IP address of Mac1. On Mac2, I went to Go->Connect to Server.

When I typed in the IP address (3 digits . 3 digits . 3 digits . 3 digits), it gave me the error "There was a problem connecting to the server. URLs with the type "." are not supported."

Then I tried:

smb:// ip address /share

After waiting for "Connecting to smb:// ip address /share..." for about a minute, I got the error :

"There was a problem connecting to the server "ip address". The server may not exist or it is unavailable at the time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection and then try again."

I have tried twice already. Anybody knows what is wrong and how to fix this?

 

[Bigwaff]

Make sure you don't have any spaces before, in the middle, or at the end of the IP address... ex.

smb://192.168.111.132/

or

smb://192.168.111.132/sharename

 

[hajime]

Thanks.

Yes, no space. Double checked already.

Anyway, tried to do it again today. Somehow the last six digits of the IP address changed. Re-entered and I could share files. Not sure if it has something to do with permissions as earlier today, I created a new shared folder while trying the Share Disk approach (failed).

How come for a 10GB file, it took about 10 secs to complete the transfer in one trial. In the second trial, it took double the time. In the 3rd trial, it took almost 15 sec? I don't have other programs running.

Another question is can we do better? Even the fastest trial took 1GB/sec. With both computers connected by Thunderbolt 4, shouldn't the transfer rate be 40GB/sec?

 

[Bigwaff]

Another question is can we do better? Even the fastest trial took 1GB/sec. With both computers connected by Thunderbolt 4, shouldn't the transfer rate be 40GB/sec?

SMB protocol has overhead. What are the model and specs of "Mac1" and "Mac2"?

 

[hajime]

Mac1: Mac mini 2023 base model (8-core CPU, 256GB SSD)
Mac2: MacBook Pro 16" 2023 (12-core CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)

 

[Brian33]

Another question is can we do better? Even the fastest trial took 1GB/sec. With both computers connected by Thunderbolt 4, shouldn't the transfer rate be 40GB/sec?

If you want to measure the bandwidth of the connection without the SMB overhead, I suggest installing ‘iperf3’ on each Mac and testing that way.

if your main use case is to transfer files, try ‘rsync’ as it uses its own protocol, not SMB.

 

[hajime]

Does 'rsync' work well for files from different OS (Windows, Linux, iOS, MacOS)?

 

[Brian33]

It will work from Linux without a problem, and windows, with the proper set up. I don’t know about iOS — probably not. I Should have made it clear that it is a command line tool. Not very convenient for regular users. But it works well for backups.

Several years ago I used rsync to back up files on my spouse’s windows laptop to my Mac. I remember that I installed ‘Cygwin’ on the laptop. I don’t remember what other configuration was needed but I know I found the info on the web somewhere.

 

[hajime]

Besides connecting two Mac via Thunderbolt, are there better and faster options?

 

[Brian33]

The only other option I could think of is 10 Gb ethernet. Probably your Macs don’t have that. The Mac Studio, and maybe the high-end Mac mini (?) have it as an option, I believe.